Grateful Dead End 50-Year Career With Moving, Magnificent Final Show | Rolling Stone

"I have spent my life/Seeking all that's still unsung/Bent my ear to hear the tune," sang Phil Lesh last night, harmonizing with colleagues new and old, on "Attics of My Life," the final song of a fraught, moving, ultimately magnificent five-night, two-state Fare The Well concert series — billed as the final shows that the surviving members of the Grateful Dead will ever perform together. The final concert was also the run's strongest, showcasing a new band hitting its stride precisely as it was set to retire. The new guys — Phish's Trey Anastasio, RatDog's Jeff Chimenti and returning moonlighter Bruce Hornsby — found equal footing and perfect sync with original band members Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzman and Mickey Hart. It was clear from the opener, "China Cat Sunflower" into "I Know You Rider," one of the band's most emblematic and potent pairings. When Anastasio and Hornsby, not Weir or Lesh, traded lead vocals on the former, it felt like a torch was passed. And when the 70,000 fans sang "I know you rider/Gonna miss me when I'm gone" during the latter, it was like they were singing those words to each other.

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