A Barack Obama presidential candidacy may give Grateful Dead fans reason to rejoice this year.
The Dead's surviving members got together in February to perform at a Deadheads for Obama rally in San Francisco. "It was our first straight-up political event ever," notes guitarist Bob Weir, who's now on the road with his band Ratdog. "We had fun." And, Weir tells Billboard.com, the group, which is largely dormant these days, may want to have a little more fun in the near future.
"I would be surprised if we don't get around to playing again at some point," he says. "But, really, my hot hand right now is Ratdog, and I think that goes for Phil (Lesh) with his group, and Mickey (Hart) has his project and Billy (Kreutzmann) is sort of happily retired over in Hawaii. But we'll get together again. I'm sure of that."
Weir says the Dead men like Obama "for different reasons." Mostly, he explains, "I think it may be the last chance in our lifetimes to get money out of politics, to show special interests the door. It's also a chance to get younger people involved in politics for the first time in many years; once they're involved, I think they'll stay and that's important because it's their future being decided now."
Wave that flag, wave it wide and high!
http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003781867
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
