Dead & Company to play Folsom Field Fourth of July weekend

Folsom Field, home of the Colorado Buffaloes, will play host to the Dead & Company on July 2, and 3.

Drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann and singer-guitarist Bob Weir will perform with singer and guitarist John Mayer are expected to perform. Bassist Phil Lesh will not be there as the “core four” played together for the last time on the Fare The Well 50th anniversary tour last summer.

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees, The Grateful Dead played one of the first concerts at Folsom Field on Sept 3 of 1972. They also played in Boulder at the home of the Buffs in June of 1980 for their 15th anniversary.

The Dead and Company played in Broomfield at the 1stBank Center on Nov. 24-25 with the same group.

The last concert at Folsom was on July 11th, 2001, Dave Matthews Band and Wyclef Jean performed. DMB recorded their “Live at Folsom Field, Boulder Colorado,” album in 2001 in front of 40,000-plus patrons. The two largest crowds in the history of the stadium were for concerts. The biggest crowd of 61,500, was for the “Folsom Music Festival,” on May 1, 1977, Fleetwood Mac, Bob Seger, Boulder’s own Firefall and John Sebastian performed.

The 15th-anniversary concert is below:

Folsom saw many a popular band perform in the 1970s and 80s as it hosted the likes of Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, the Eagles, the Beach Boys, Journey, the Doobie Brothers, Boston, Van Halen, The Who, Jethro Tull and John Cougar.

The 1972 concert was one of three concerts put on by Program council that year, and it was the only one that went off without a hitch. Those other two started the long history of havoc known to Folsom Field when it comes to concerts.

Planning was made difficult because of previous poor relationships between Program Council, the Athletic Department and the CU and Boulder Police Department. These bad feelings stemmed from incidents at Jefferson Airplane and Neil Young concerts. As a result, Program Council was given only marginal cooperation and support. The result was an inadequate number of available, restrooms (concert goers would just “mess them up), limited use of necessary athletic department facilities, and token presence by hostile police officers who had not coordinated with concert organizers. Nevertheless, the concert was remarkably smooth and trouble free. Problems included public urination (and worse), parking hassles (what’s new), and some damage to the Folsom Field turf.

The real problems with the Grateful Dead concert came a few days before the concert. The promoters of the event ran full-page ads featuring the University of Colorado Cultural Events Board in the Denver newspapers. The ads featured a checklist for concert goers. It contained several useful items like, “bring a blanket,” also, “bring something good to eat.” And the words that spelled trouble for Program Council “bring your best stuff.” The thinly veiled encouragement of drug use was a not a wise business move. The University promptly canceled the contract with Concerts West and the stadium concert business was back to square one as PC tried to overcome the hang-over from “too-hip” promotion.

In a story run by CUBuffs.com, Colorado’s Athletic Director Rick George was quoted:

“Now that we are nearing completion on our Athletic Complex Expansion, these two July concerts are part of a strategic effort to increase event programming and revenue by using the stadium for more than just football games,” said CU Athletic Director Rick George. “In addition to six annual home games in the fall and the spring football game, Folsom also annually hosts May commencement, the BolderBOULDER and Ralphie’s Independence Day Blast. Our goal is to host additional events during the summer (after the BolderBOULDER on Memorial Day and prior to the first home football game in early September) so as to not impact peak times of the academic year.”

Tickets start at $39.50 and  will go on sale to the public at 10 a.m. this Friday (February 12). Visit www.cubuffs.com/DeadAndCompany for more information.