On this Day in Music History: Jerry Garcia Plays His Final Show With the Grateful Dead

On this day (July 9) in 1995, Jerry Garcia would unknowingly perform with the Grateful Dead for the last time. Also unbeknownst to the concertgoers at Chicago’s Soldier Field, they would lay witness to the end of an era that night as Garcia and the rest of the Dead took the stage. This was their second night playing the sports stadium and the final stop on their 16-date summer tour of the East Coast.

In a Relix review of the two-night stand, the outlet remarked on many of the nights’ shortcomings, recalling Garcia’s distant stage presence, but also that the band’s live moments “ranged from painful to spectacular.” Written in the critique was the question, “Is this a new beginning or the beginning of the end?” an ominous query in hindsight.

Performing for fans their usual two-set show, the band closed out the night with an encore showcase of “Black Muddy River” and “Box of Rain” followed by what the review called “one of the best fireworks displays in ages.”

Garcia would pass away exactly a month after the Chicago show. He entered a rehabilitation clinic after the tour and would die of a heart attack there on August 9, 1995, at the age of 53.

“Jerry wasn’t well to begin with, and he was winding down,” his Grateful Dead bandmate Mickey Hart recalled on the 25th anniversary of his death. “He was living on borrowed time. Everybody was ready for it, but you can never really be ready for it.”

Garcia was clean when he entered the facility, Hart recalled, but said, “He was weak, and he was trying to stay alive.

“When he checked in, he was not strung out,” he explained. “He was just very sick from all that abuse. He died of something else — his heart gave out … Somebody there told me he died with a smile on his face.”

Grateful Dead’s Soldier Field Set List – July 9, 1995

Set 1:

“Touch of Grey”
“Little Red Rooster”
“Lazy River Road”
“When I Paint My Masterpiece”
“Childhood’s End”
“Cumberland Blues”
“Promised Land”

Set 2:

“Shakedown Street”
“Samson and Delilah”
“So Many Roads”
“Samba in the Rain”
“Corrina”
“Drums”
“Space”
“Unbroken Chain”
“Sugar Magnolia”

Encore:

“Black Muddy River”
“Box of Rain”
(via setlist.fm)

Photo by Larry Hulst/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images