May 6th,
1999
Furthur 1999--The Power of
Rumor
Further on down the rumor-mill road
with Furthur
Previously
I reported on the rumors that were being floated by
Metropolitan
Entertainment regarding a
possible scaled down 1999 Furthur Festival.
Earlier,
it had been announced that due to Phil's health, there
was insufficient time to put a tour
together. Of course, the
online community rumor mill would have none of that, and
churned out megabytes of "insider" info regarding the
true nature of the struggle inside the GD, and Phil's
problems with Metropolitan, and the large
Furthur
98 Other Ones
lineup.
Since then, Phil and Phriends have
performed a triumphant
3-night run at the Warfield,
and Phil will be playing at the 1999
Mountain Aire Festival in
Calaveras County, CA. So... Phil's fine, what's up with
the other guys?
Last week, someone at dead.net opened
up a topic,
stating that "Hart, Weir & Hunter have agreed to join
the Furthur Tour in August. Dates & venues still
pending." This in itself is not so surprising, since just
about anyone can open up a topic about anything. What
gives it an implied "officialness" is that from within
the GD's
own website, the top link from
the Furthur
page is linked to this
discussion.
So, I called up Dennis McNally, GDP's
official spokesman, and what he told me amounted to the
following:
- Metropolitan is trying to put
together a tour with Mickey, Bobby, and Robert Hunter,
and maybe some others.
- It would probably be no more than
a 3-week run.
- They would probably play smaller
venues than last year.
- And, as of today, it has
not been finalized.
So, this should surprise nobody, and
it reminds me a little of the rumor storms surrounding
Phil's liver condition. Back on October of 1998, Jon
Rochmis wrote an
interesting article about the
online rumor mill in the SF Gate web site. It's worth
revisiting at this point.
I think the surviving Deadhead
community yearns for some gatherings, especially after
The Other Ones tour of last year, and if it weren't for
that, it wouldn't even get as far as it's
gone.
Stay tuned...
Geoff Gould
GDF sysop