Inside the Grateful Dead’s Final Concert With Jerry Garcia: What Really Happened Onstage 30 Years Ago?

Lauren Novak July 9, 11:15 am

BERKELEY, UNITED STATES - MAY 22: Jerry Garcia performing with the Grateful Dead at the Greek Theater in Berkeley on May 22, 1982. — Clayton Call/Redferns

For fans of the Grateful Dead, July 9, 1995 marks a truly bittersweet moment in the band’s history: It was the last time Jerry Garcia took the stage with the band that helped define an entire counterculture. By that summer, Garcia’s health was noticeably declining, but no one could have predicted that their concert at Chicago’s Soldier Field would be the final bow for the iconic guitarist and frontman.

Fans had been concerned about Garcia’s wellbeing for years, and according to several Grateful Dead fan sites, the tour leading up to this show had been difficult. On the fan blog Terrapin Nation, a writer named Dripping Colors wrote, the tour “was described by fans and band members alike as the tour from Hell. There were accidental falls, overdoses and collapsing porches. The performances were, to put it mildly, uneven.”

The final show took place at the massive outdoor stadium that usually hosted the Chicago Bears, with a crowd of more than 60,000 Deadheads filling the stands and field. The band kicked off the evening with the band’s ’80s hit “Touch of Grey,” a song known for its defiant optimism and singalong chorus, “I will get by.”

The full setlist included classic tracks like “Shakedown Street,” “Scarlet Begonias,” and a haunting version of “So Many Roads,” which would later be seen as Garcia’s emotional farewell. His performance that night was subdued and fragile at times, and fans have since noted that he appeared physically exhausted. Yet there were still flashes of his signature sound, those spiraling, exploratory guitar lines that made each Grateful Dead concert completely unique.

Fan site Grateful Dead of the Day said of the show, “The playing is rather poor throughout as Jerry struggles through just about the entire night and several lyrical flubs and poor playing come from the rest of the band as well. However, there are a few nice moments in the show to go along with this tremendous piece of Grateful Dead history.”

FILLMORE, Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead, in a documentary of their concert at the Fillmore West, SF, 1972.

Everett Collection

During the encore, Garcia sang “Muddy Black River,” his final live performance with the band. After the show finished with “Box of Rain,” the lights went up and the band walked offstage. There were no announcements, no goodbyes. Just the end of another show. A month later, on August 9, 1995, Garcia died of a heart attack at a drug rehabilitation facility in Forest Knolls, California. He was 53.

It was the last time Deadheads would experience Garcia’s voice and guitar in a live setting and the last time the magic of the Grateful Dead’s original lineup would unfold on stage. In 2015, the surviving members returned to Soldier Field for a series of reunion concerts called “Fare Thee Well” to mark the 50th anniversary of the band and to pay tribute to Garcia.

The Grateful Dead were the first major band to encourage fans to record their shows, so multiple high-quality audio recordings of the show exist, if you’re curious to hear Garcia’s final stand.