When tickets went on sale earlier this month for this week's four shows by post-Grateful Dead band Furthur at the Sweetwater Music Hall, it became apparent pretty quickly that demand would far outstrip supply.
The 300-capacity venue's phones were ringing off the hook, and interest wasn't dampened by Grateful Dead Ticketing's unorthodox decision to require would-be attendees to fill out a form and fax it in to be included in a ticket lottery. Thousands of faxed formed were submitted, according to venue officials.
But the thousands unable to get inside the intimate, Meyer Sound-blasted confines of the Sweetwater for the Jan. 16-19 shows are in luck. The Sweetwater is streaming the first two and last of the four shows on its website for free, and Yahoo Music, via Weir's TRI Studios in San Rafael, are streaming Friday night's show for free to the web giant's 32 million users. TRI and Yahoo inked a distribution deal in 2012 for live streaming of performances from the studio.
Friday night's stream can be found here.
"We are looking forward to streaming these upcoming Furthur Shows to let the world into the Sweetwater," TRI CEO Chris McCutcheon said. "These nights are going to be special, especially Friday's show which will be aired on Yahoo Music. Hopefully, this will be just the first four Furthur streams of 2013!"
For those that did garner tickets, Sweetwater officials are hoping to avoid mass confusion at the door by posting this note online this week:
"Just wanted to remind everyone that there are no name changes permitted on Furthur tickets, so if you can't use the tickets you have you should contact GDTS TOO. Please don't show up at the door expecting to pick up someone else's tickets or leave your tickets for another person. Thank you!"
Furthur, named after Ken Kesey's psychedelic bus, was co-founded in 2009 by longtime Mill Valley resident and Sweetwater co-owner Bob Weir and Ross resident and Terrapin Crossroads owner Phil Lesh, both original members of the legendary rock group that officially disbanded afterguitarist Jerry Garcia died in 1995. They recently finished a series of shows at the 8,000-capacity Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco.
In addition to Weir and Lesh, the band includes John Kadlecik of Dead cover band the Dark Star Orchestra on lead guitar, Jeff Chimenti of RatDog on keyboards, Joe Russo of the Benevento/Russo Duo on drums and Sunshine Becker and Jeff Pehrson on vocals.
Are you going? Watching the streams? Which night? Let s know in the Comments below!
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