The primary time Albie Cullen stated goodbye to the Grateful Lifeless was on Aug. 9, 1995.

A co-worker instructed Cullen, an lawyer for a Boston-area music label, that Jerry Garcia, the Lifeless’s iconic lead guitarist, had died that day. Cullen had attended dozens of exhibits. He reveled within the Lifeless’s improvisational spirit, the best way no two performances had been alike: “Once you noticed the Stones a dozen occasions,” he defined not too long ago, “it was just about the identical present.”

Regardless of the Garcia information, Cullen saved his plans to see RatDog, a aspect undertaking of Garcia’s bandmate Bob Weir, play a live performance in Hampton Seashore, N.H., that night. Weir, a rhythm guitarist, instructed the group that Garcia — who at 53 suffered a deadly coronary heart assault at a drug rehab facility — “proved that nice music could make unhappy occasions higher.” Throughout an encore of Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” Cullen, 59, recalled, “There was not a dry eye.”

“Everyone form of knew that was the tip,” he added.

The Grateful Lifeless had changed departed members earlier than, however this was totally different. Along with his rootsy tenor, Santa-gone-gray beard and unmistakable plucking, Garcia had outlined a touring juggernaut and its vibrant subculture, which had change into synonymous with the ’60s. The band’s 4 surviving authentic members agreed they might by no means use the identify “Grateful Lifeless” with out Garcia.

However the Lifeless didn’t die. The subsequent 12 months, a number of members participated in a tour. They maintained aspect initiatives that primarily performed Lifeless songs. Totally different permutations toured collectively — because the Different Ones, as Furthur, because the adjective-less the Lifeless.

Lastly, in 2015, the band staged one other goodbye, taking part in 5 exhibits with Phish’s Trey Anastasio on lead guitar. The mini tour was known as Fare Thee Properly: Celebrating 50 Years of the Grateful Lifeless.

That adieu, too, didn’t take. That fall, Weir and the Lifeless’s authentic drummers, Mickey Hart and Invoice Kreutzmann, assembled a brand new act, Lifeless & Firm, with the keyboardist Jeff Chimenti, the bassist Oteil Burbridge and the lead guitarist John Mayer (sure, that John Mayer).

A humorous factor occurred as this new band wound its method throughout the US: The Lifeless grew to become a cultural touchstone once more. Lifeless & Firm attracted a brand new crop of youthful followers, as did tribute bands like Joe Russo’s Nearly Lifeless. Final August, the Lifeless had its largest week of document gross sales in 35 years, in response to its writer; in February, it gained its first Grammy. Between 2012 and 2022, U.S. streams of Lifeless songs elevated at practically double the speed of the Rolling Stones, in response to the monitoring service Luminate.

The Lifeless had discovered its second once more.

“This might sound wildly corny, however I don’t care: The group of the Lifeless is a crucial group in a 12 months like 2023,” stated Bethany Cosentino, 36, of the indie rock band Finest Coast. She grew to become a fan only a few years in the past because of her “Gen X boyfriend.”

“There’s an actual ethos of pleasure to be in a room with a bunch of people who find themselves simply connecting to music in their very own method however having this communal, collective expertise,” she added.

Cullen stated the Deadheads have taken word: “I joke with my mates — they’re larger now than they ever had been.”

Now there’s yet one more farewell. After greater than 200 exhibits, Lifeless & Firm has bought out stadiums throughout the nation with its so-called Remaining Tour. The run concludes this weekend with three exhibits at Oracle Park in San Francisco, the town the place the Grateful Lifeless fashioned practically 60 years in the past.

“It’s part of the life cycle. In life, there’s dying,” Hart stated in a video interview. “Nevertheless it all is determined by what you name dying. As a result of there’s life after dying — in music, anyway.”

Bands led by Weir, the unique Lifeless bassist Phil Lesh and Kreutzmann (who was changed for this tour by Jay Lane) all have live shows scheduled within the subsequent couple of months. Hart allowed for the potential of a future for Lifeless & Firm, whereas confirming this was its final tour.

“The music’s by no means going to go anyplace — and one of many good issues in regards to the music is there are millions of live shows all of us have entry to,” stated Andy Cohen, the Bravo host and government producer who has been a Lifeless fan since highschool. “However the communal feeling of all of us being at Citi Discipline collectively and having fun with two banger exhibits,” he added, “that’s one thing I don’t envision we’re going to get once more.”

We’re, it appears, at all times saying goodbye to the Grateful Lifeless. However Weir and Mayer warned followers to not anticipate a eulogy.

“I believe everybody’s had sufficient loss of their life to go to San Francisco and have this be funereal,” Mayer stated.

“I’m dead-set towards that taking place,” Weir added. “I’ll be stir-fried if I’m going to let that occur.”

Mayer continued: “If I had my want, it will be for folks to say goodbye to Lifeless & Firm with out the ache of goodbye.”

THE PROMOTER PETER SHAPIRO, who owns the jam band redoubts Brooklyn Bowl and the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, N.Y., and promoted the Fare Thee Properly exhibits, noticed that the true quantity of people that would pay to see the Grateful Lifeless — a band that stopped touring the 12 months earlier than Ticketmaster bought its first ticket over the Web — wasn’t revealed till 2015, when Lifeless followers broke the positioning’s document for many consumers in a queue.

Ticket gross sales for the 5 live shows that 12 months — two at Levi’s Stadium close to San Francisco and three at Chicago’s Soldier Discipline — introduced in $40 million. Practically 71,000 folks attended every Chicago present; many extra considered theatrical and pay-per-view simulcasts.

“Fare Thee Properly was alleged to be an ending,” Shapiro stated, “and it was a brand new starting.”

Mayer was secreted away through the Chicago exhibits, already a deliberate addition. He had met Weir and Hart by Don Was, the producer and document government. Mayer gushed to them in regards to the Lifeless’s music, which he got here to effectively after his formative listening years; he in contrast it in a latest interview to “cilantro, if all I’ve been consuming is meat and potatoes.”

Hart had been solely glancingly acquainted with Mayer’s music, however knew he was a superb guitarist. “On our stage, he’s not a pop star or something like that,” Hart stated. “He has a lot respect for the Grateful Lifeless — I’ve a lot respect for him for that. He handled the music like his personal.”

Whereas some purists grumbled at Mayer’s inclusion (as, certainly, some grumbled in regards to the Fare Thee Properly exhibits), most followers “decided,” stated Dennis McNally, a former Grateful Lifeless spokesman and biographer, “that they weren’t in love with ‘the band’ — the folks — they had been in love with the music, and that it was to some extent a matter of style relating to who was taking part in it. That it was its personal style, virtually like jazz or blues.”

Whereas many traditional rock artists spawned cowl acts, a web site devoted to Grateful Lifeless tribute bands has greater than 600 teams in its database, 100 to 150 of which, its proprietors estimate, are lively.

Some Lifeless tribute acts are easy and fairly in style, like Darkish Star Orchestra, which recreates particular Lifeless live shows by set checklist. Others make use of the Lifeless’s music as a jumping-off level. There’s a jazz band and an Afrobeat one. Brown Eyed Ladies is all feminine. Warlocks of Tokyo sing in Japanese.

The digital artist LP Giobbi, a Millennial daughter of Deadheads, makes use of sonic loops and stems over home beats to create what she calls Lifeless Home. “I’m blown away by what number of ravers I meet who’re additionally Deadheads,” stated the artist, who performed at after-parties following many live shows on this Lifeless & Firm tour.

The distinctiveness of every Lifeless efficiency is essential to the music’s lasting enchantment. Al Franken, the creator, former senator and longtime fan who as soon as opened for the band, not too long ago caught up with mates who had seen Lifeless & Firm exterior St. Louis. “I requested what they performed, and I used to be placing out. ‘Did they do “China Cat Sunflower”?’ ‘No.’ This can be a massive, massive physique of music. You’ll be able to go to 4 nights in a row and principally not hear the identical tune. And so they play issues otherwise on a regular basis.”

The Lifeless’s eclectic songbook comes out of rock, folks, blues, nation and bluegrass; its lyrics, many by Robert Hunter and John Perry Barlow, are usually ambiguous but buoyant (“strangers stopping strangers simply to shake their hand,” “get up to search out out that you’re the eyes of the world,” “what a protracted unusual journey it’s been”).

“The factor about this music is it doesn’t happen at residence — nobody’s residence. Individuals are attempting to get residence,” Mayer stated.

“There’s one thing in regards to the fantasy of transience for individuals who don’t essentially have it of their lives, like myself,” he added. “The fantasy of the perpetual searcher, the particular person with the knapsack who can sleep on sofa after sofa. Most individuals who go to Lifeless live shows don’t essentially reside that life, however aspire to spiritually have this devil-may-care angle.”

Trey Pierce, 20, started discovering the Lifeless in center college by way of CD boxed units, DVDs and the Web Archive, which hosts free tapers’ recordings of Grateful Lifeless exhibits. Now he’s a die-hard who drove for hours from St. Lawrence College in northern New York to see Phil Lesh and Pals carry out in March exterior New York Metropolis.

“That’s what’s gotten me by a lot of my life,” he stated. “Any bizarre stuff I’ve had happening, challenges I’ve had, it’s been regarding these lyrics and Jerry” — who died eight years earlier than Pierce was born — “belting into my soul.”

IN A PARKING LOT throughout from Citi Discipline in Queens earlier than the second of two Lifeless & Firm exhibits final month, automotive stereos blasted recordings of reside Lifeless because the subway clacked over the elevated strains. Distributors hawked T-shirts, jewellery, recent cooked meals and fewer licit fare. Erin Cadigan, who specified that she had seen 72 Lifeless exhibits “with Jerry,” carried out tarot readings on a licensed, Grateful Lifeless-themed tarot deck she created with a companion.

The tour has tended to be effectively reviewed by followers. “Closest factor to the unique I’ve seen,” Cullen wrote in a textual content message after leaving Fenway Park in Boston final month. “Mockingly it’s ending simply as they appeared to have figured it out.”

Mariah Napoli, 45, a self-described “second-generation” Deadhead, stated she had seen on this tour “much more folks crying the final two songs than you normally do.”

She added, “I’ve been doing it so lengthy, I don’t see myself stopping till they’re all lifeless. At that time, it’ll be time for me to hunker down and begin to get older.”

Why can we maintain saying goodbye to the Grateful Lifeless … then welcome them again, after which do it once more?

“The Buddhists consider that figuring out each minute you’re going to die is what makes life so valuable,” stated Elena Lister, a New York-based psychiatrist and grief specialist. “If you realize you’re going to lose one thing of any type, you treasure it all of the extra whilst you have it. In case you deny it, you miss that chance.”

Dustin Grella, 52, a professor of animation at Queens School, has a extra dramatic Lifeless story than most. Within the spring and summer time of 1995 he was following the Grateful Lifeless on what would grow to be its final tour. However he missed the ultimate two live shows at Soldier Discipline after he sustained an harm to his spinal twine when a porch collapsed at a campground exterior a present close to St. Louis.

“Once you’re experiencing that form of trauma,” Grella stated of the restoration interval, “you need simply to return to regular. For me, that was being a touring Deadhead.”

In 2015, he noticed within the Fare Thee Properly exhibits in Chicago an opportunity for closure — “my alternative,” he stated, “to make peace with the Lifeless.”

However that didn’t imply he would miss one other event to say goodbye. For Lifeless & Firm’s last tour, Grella and a pal purchased a used Kentucky college bus, connected panels to each side and lined them in chalkboard paint. Grella, who makes use of a wheelchair, parked the bus within the lot, put chalk out and inspired passers-by so as to add their very own designs. He had begun the spontaneous art work by etching a lyric from “Scarlet Begonias”: “Infrequently you get proven the sunshine/Within the strangest of locations should you have a look at it proper.”