Furthur 1999--To be or not to
be?
Rumor control in a rumor-fed
world
On Monday, March 29th,
Billboard
Magazine published a small
article on it's website, which
centered around the musings of Metropolitan Entertainment
tour producer John Scher about the fate of a Furthur
Festival in 1999. Basically, he said that they had
decided it wasn't going to happen, but that an outpouring
of fan emotion has caused them to reconsider, even though
there seems to be not enough time to do it
properly.
Another error-filled
news flash from Jam TV said
basically the same thing, but also added speculation from
"insiders" about the creative disputes behind the
decision not to tour, in addition to Phil Lesh's health
concerns. It also quoted Dennis McNally as saying that he
was under the impression that the tour was off, but he's
now hearing that they're going to attempt to put together
a smaller tour, perhaps featuring Ratdog and Planet Drum.
I talked to Dennis today to clarify things, and he
confirmed that there has been some talk, but that there
was nothing even remotely settled.
My guess here is that they want to do
something this summer, but will certainly find it
difficult to pull off, given the commercial limitations.
There's really nothing much official coming out of the
GDP's headquarters in Novato, but we'll try and keep
y'all up to date.
Geoff Gould
GDF sysop