by Guy Page
A music festival merger is bringing an annual Grateful Dead music reunion to Vermont this summer.
The JerryJam music festival, formerly held in Bath, NH, will merge with the Manifestivus music festival and move to the latter’s site at a farm in Cabot, according to a Facebook post:
“We are beyond excited to announce our new home!! Jerry Jam 2023 will be held at the Pransky Farm in Cabot Vermont!! This sacred ground is the beloved home of the Manifestivus Music & Arts Festival!! We are super stoked to have this opportunity to join the two tribes of Jerry Jam and Manifestivus!!”
To avoid Trouble Ahead in the form of crowd maintenance, the engineers of the upcoming festival say they will watch the speed of the ticket sales.
“In the spirit of kindness and in order to create a ‘soft landing’ in this new community, we have committed to limit ticket sales to no more than 2000! That said, we expect this to sell out long before the gates open on July 14th 2023. The new location, Pransky Road Cabot Vermont, is approximately 43 minutes from Littleton, NH.”
JerryJam celebrates the music of a (most of the time) trio originally named the Warlocks but in 1965 began touring as The Grateful Dead. Part of the San Francisco hippie scene, they played Woodstock in 1969 and – unlike many bands – enjoyed the attention of the children of the children of the 1960’s.
The Dead played a few concerts in Vermont from 1978 to 1995. Although lead singer Jerry Garcia survived the Army, a diabetic coma, and life in the house band for acid afficianado Ken Kesey’s organization, according to History.com, he died of a heart attack at a drug rehab facility in California in 1995. But the music and drug culture of the Grateful Dead continued, with the tribal faithful gathering for annual weekends like JerryJam, now in its 26th year.
Upon Garcia’s death, the Dead disbanded. However the music style (and the tribal, drug-connected culture) of the well and truly dead band lived on in Phish, a Vermont-based band that went on to international fame and glory. Lead guitarist Trey Anastasio reportedly credited attending a 1983 Dead concert as an inspiring moment.
Categories: Society & Culture
I will be there selling fresh strawberries and Naloxone sprays both at exhorbitantly marked up prices…. Groovy man!!! Long live capitalism. And Frank Zappa. Spare us more rehash of “The Dreadful Trend”
Mr. Floyd’s sentiment reminds me of a joke. “What did one dead-head say to the other dead-head at a Grateful Dead concert after the drugs and alcohol wore off?”
“This music sucks!”