https://www.dead.net/features/blair-jackson/blairs-golden-road-blog-super-bowl-fantasy

Blair's Golden Road Blog - Super Bowl Fantasy

As I watched Madonna’s dumb, hopelessly over-the-top, obviously lip-synched performance during halftime of the Super Bowl, I wondered what the Grateful Dead might have done if they’d stuck around this long and were asked to play at that outsized and cartoonish extravaganza. (OK, we’re in Fantasyland here: Jerry is still alive and somehow Dead Heads in the corporate wing of the NFL convinced their bosses and the network carrying the Super Bowl that the “legendary” Grateful Dead would be perfect to fill that 17-minute slot between the 12th Bud Light commercial and this year’s shameful sex tease from GoDaddy.com. After all, The Who and Paul McCartney had done it, and Led Zep still wasn’t interested.)

The promos the network ran for the Dead’s halftime appearance in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl looked promising. There they were, happy and smiling, belting out the triumphal closing chorus of “Touch of Grey”—“We will survive!”—for a stadium full of tie-dye-clad revelers singing along on a sunny summer afternoon. Quick cut to hippies dancing in Golden Gate Park, 1967, then to a brief glimpse of Kesey’s bus, then back to the Dead show, where the band and crowd are loudly crooning, “What a lonnnnnng strange trip it’s been!” Fade in Grateful Dead “Stealie” logo” over cheering fans and… fade to black. Dynamite!

From Someecards.com

The on-field rehearsal the night before went well. The band had worked up a snappy jam-free medley of a truncated “Truckin’” (minus the “Livin’ on reds, vitamin C and cocaine” verse and the second “Sometimes the light’s all shining on me” bridge); “Touch of Grey” (pruned by two verses and a bridge); “Sugar Magnolia” (during which 500 clean-cut local teenagers decked out in matching tie-dye shirts and pressed jeans, each carrying a single plastic daisy, charged onto the field in front of the band’s peace-symbol-shaped stage and imitated frantic hippie dancing to simulate a Dead Head crowd); and a feel-good finale of “Not Fade Away” (which ended with the kids moving into formation to spell the word “LOVE.” Awww, how sweet! Jerry was laughing as he left the stage; Phil scowled and shook his head. In the video truck parked outside the stadium, everyone looked pleased and satisfied.

The next day—Super Bowl Sunday—everything seemed to be going beautifully with the telecast. The game was exciting—how ’bout that play right before halftime where the quarterback tried to hide the ball under his shirt; that never works! The commercials were incredible—remember the one with the biker, the nun in a bikini and a dead koala bear? LOL! Before the teams had even made it into their locker rooms, the halftime stage crew swarmed onto the field and worked like ants on steroids rolling the many enormous pieces of the stage into place. The stadium was buzzing with excitement as the house lights were extinguished, multicolored spotlights began moving over the crowd in fast sweeps, and the voice of none other than Morgan Freeman solemnly intoned over the P.A.: “Ladies and gentlemen … direct from Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco … the last survivors of the turned-on ’60s … the Grateful Dead!”

There was a deafening roar from the crowd, the lights that had been flashing and flying over every inch of the cavernous stadium’s three decks suddenly came together at once in a single giant beam of rainbow light that drenched the stage in color, and fireworks behind the band platform exploded into the night sky. Incredible! And then…

Well…nothing. Mickey hit his snare a couple of times, checking to see if it was properly tuned. Jerry stood facing his stack of amps, casually lighting a cigarette and joking with Steve Parish. Bob was kneeling intently in front of his effects setup, twisting knobs and flicking switches, trying out a MIDI sound that was like a burp mixed with an oboe. Phil warmed up with a dissonant Schoenbergian 12-tone row on his bass, while Billy played the “Alley Cat” rhythm with brushes on his hi-hat. And guest pianist Elton John, who had worn a jewel-encrusted Day-glo jump suit at rehearsal, was nowhere to be seen.

After 45 seconds of this, the director in the video truck was in full freak-out mode, letting out strange squeals and screams and attempting to tear out at what little hair he had left. “It’s cool,” Dead manager Danny Rifkin, who had been lured out of retirement for the Super Bowl gig, casually told the director. “Sometimes they can be a little slow getting into it.” Right at that moment, Garcia put down his ciggie, turned to the other players, Sir Elton arrived at his bench to ecstatic cheers, and the Dead charged into…. Ba-da-da-duh, ba-da-da-dah… “Dark Star”!

“WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?” the red-faced director shrieked in Rifkin’s direction, except he didn’t say “hell.”

“That’s ‘Dark Star,’ man. What a treat for the Dead Heads. They never open with that!”

“But … but … what about ‘Truckin’’?” the apoplectic director sputtered, his eyes bulging.

“I guess it didn’t feel right,” Rifkin said. “Or maybe they’ll play it later. Don’t worry, they’ve got a clock.”

Indeed, a bright digital clock tucked below Bobby’s front monitor speaker gave a read-out of how much of the band’s 17-minute allotment was left. After just a minute and half of “Dark Star” craziness—surely the shortest version ever—the group lurched into the elephantine lumber of “Victim or the Crime” and Bob came to the mike and shouted: “Patience runs out on the junkie / The dark side hires another soul…” By this point the director was speechless, staring at Rifkin with a wide-eyed, panicked look.

“It’s very topical,” Rifkin said calmly with a smile. “The line about ‘the dark side’ will grab all those kids who are into vampires. You know, the Twilight crowd.”

The band mercifully played just a single verse and then shifted gears again. All right—there’s a riff everyone knows! Garcia came up to the mike: “DRIVING THAT TRAIN, HIGH ON CO-CAINE!”

Over the director’s intercom in the truck came the voice of the network president: “NO! NO! NO! NO! FIX THIS … NOW!”