Looks like the Grateful Dead, even without the late Jerry Garcia at the helm, is still a major draw at the box office. The band said this week it received "an overwhelming number" of mail-order ticket requests for its July 3-5 reunion concerts at Soldier Field.
At dead50.net, the band said it received more than 60,000 individual pieces of mail and said "we are going to try to fill as many of these orders as possible." Sources within the Dead camp said the total ticket requests exceeded 300,000 for the weekend. Soldier Field's capacity is about 60,000, meaning that fewer than 200,000 tickets (ranging in price from $59.50 to $199.50) are available for the three shows.
The mail pre-order preceded the official ticket release to the public by about a month. There is no official word about how many tickets will be made available on Feb. 28 via Ticketmaster, but it appears certain that hundreds of thousands of fans are likely to be turned down for seats.
The shows, dubbed "Fare Thee Well," are the first for the surviving band members - Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann - under the Grateful Dead moniker since its final two shows at Soldier Field in July 1995. Garcia died a month later, and the band split. Since then, a few reunions have been held under other names, including the Other Ones and the Dead. For the July shows, the core foursome will be joined by Phish's Trey Anastasio, filling in for Garcia on guitar and vocals, and keyboardists Bruce Hornsby and Jeff Chimenti.Twitter @gregkot