DEROY MURDOCK: Why I believe the Grateful Dead became one of the biggest religions on Earth

“Remember the Sabbath day, sanctify it.

The Fourth Commandment suddenly came to mind recently as I did a Free Press article by Larissa Phillips about the Grateful Dead. It’s all about following the Dead and everything was like a big, moving, fun church.

I agree.

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Standing among thousands of my dead colleagues, especially at the height of Jerry Garcia’s goosebump-inducing guitar solo, I looked around the stunned crowd and thought, “If this isn’t religion, what is?” A religion that doesn’t have a fake, exaggerated, deeply disappointing “God”, and has real, talented, flesh-and-blood musicians to worship: Who could ask for more?

Eric Clapton, Jerry Garcia, Elton John and Carlos Santana are my four musical gods. Generally speaking, those of us who get on airplanes and fly across the country or across oceans to see music are what I call the First Song Church.

Seeing and following the Grateful Dead was part of this belief. I was lucky enough to catch the Dead at city shows in New York City and Los Angeles. I rode in cars to see people’s places in Foxboro, Massachusetts; Oakland and Ventura, California; Oxford Speedway, Maine; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I flew to see them in Buffalo and Chicago (twice).

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Then there’s the “next” – a trip to many cities and places: The Meadowlands, New Jersey, to Washington, DC (an occasional stop at the Garden State Arts Center, where the Neville Brothers opened for Jimmy Buffett) and the best follow-up of all: Berlin to Frankfurt to Paris. Following the Dead across Europe in 1990 was one of the highlights of my life.

Jerry Garcia, Donna Godchaux and Bob Weir perform with The Grateful Dead at Santa Barbara Stadium on June 4, 1978, at the University of California, Santa Barbara. (Ed Perlstein/Redferns/Getty Images)

I am eternally grateful to my old high school friends John Adams, Gill Ilanit and Chris Wessling, who dragged me to my first Dead show – appropriately enough – on Good Friday 1987. The skeletons, skulls and bones that abound in the Grateful Dead iconography led me to conclude, suddenly, that Satan’s death involves the evils of metal. I saw something like Black Sabbath, but even more extreme.

I firmly refused my friends’ invitations, but they persisted. Finally, to stop nagging, I made a deal with them: “Okay. I’ll see your Grateful Dead. Just this once. After that, I don’t want to hear another word about them!”

“OK. OK,” they agreed, almost giggling behind me as they looked at the maggot-adorned hook that was about to cut through my upper lip.

Jerry Garcia, the charismatic leader of the Grateful Dead, died in 1995 at the age of 53. (Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images)

So off we went to the now defunct Irvine Meadows Amphitheater for an afternoon in Southern California. We spent hours in the parking lot, thoroughly entertained, as fellow American teenagers in dyed clothes played trick-or-treating, threw Frisbees and danced with their dogs to bootleg concert tapes. The faithful revered them as the Dead Sea Scrolls.

In his Free Press article titled “Who Needs God When There Are Grateful Dead?” Phillips perfectly captured the historical moment in which this colorful afternoon among the Deadheads took place:

“I think if you’re deeply invested, it would be hard to watch the Dead go mainstream, after so many years of being a kind of secret society. In 1987, they produced their first Top 10 single, and things went crazy from there. MTV started playing the video for ‘Touch of Grey’.

Jerry Garcia performs with the Grateful Dead at the Greek Theater in Berkeley on May 22, 1982. (Clayton Call/Redferns)

Yes — young kids, like many of my friends at Palisades High School in Los Angeles. (We were college students and recent graduates at that time.) I was the preppiest among my crew that April 17, but I was not – far – the only guy out there Top-Siders.

Around this time, Jerry Garcia responded to his band finally entering the Billboard Top 10 club: “I’m surprised.”

The Grateful Dead (clockwise: Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, Mickey Hart and Jerry Garcia) took a photo in 1970. (Chris Walter/WireImage)

Back in Irvine, the festivities that included the entire parking lot sounded like an all-out attraction. In fact, it was just an overture. When I was full, my friends reminded me that we were there to see a concert.

As it got dark, we finally got into the Dead show. There is harmony from Hell, I heard the happy sounds of what I call “psychedelic country rock.” The music was fun, uplifting, happy and beautiful.

Again it was normal. I remember hearing “The Limited Prophet” and asking, “Oh, that Grateful Dead song?” And on the set list: “Truckin’.” I said, “I know this one. I heard it on the radio. Do the dead do this?”

Some songs were new to me. “Deal” was the worst first set I handled right away and I still treasure it. “The Devil’s Friend” and “Samson and Delilah” became instant favorites.

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The recently departed Bob Weir stood out on rhythm guitar and vocals. I instantly fell in love with the keyboard wizardry and piercing voice of the late Brent Mydland. The late Phil Lesh kept things together quietly. Not one drummer but two – Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, both still alive – kept the percussion alive.

Honorees Bob Weir and Mickey Hart of Dead and Company and The Grateful Dead perform on stage at the 2025 MusiCares Person of the Year honoring the Grateful Dead at the Los Angeles Convention Center on January 31, 2025, in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)

And then, there was the first among equals, the late guitarist Jerry Garcia. Although he was 44 at the time, decades of living an extraordinary life made him look about 80 years old. He was our rock ‘n’ roll grandfather, and we are his grandchildren. His piercing voice, soaring lead and soaring crescendos caused pure, unfiltered joy. With Persian rugs on stage among the guitars and wooden gear, the scene felt like Jerry’s living room. He was playing I just said. And even among about 16,000 fans, the place didn’t feel cozy or intimate.

At the end of the show, Gill asked me, “What did you think?”

I laughed and replied, “Why don’t you hurry to bring it to me?”

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“I remember dragging you to that show, then I caught you wandering around the parking lot!” John Adams later recalled. “Hilarious. You’re hooked for life.”

That was my first trip with the Grateful Dead.

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I went back for another 70 shows.

If this is not religion, what is?

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