Grateful fans enjoy Summer Dead Fest in Ventura
Tracy Lehr
VENTURA, Calif.-The first Summer Dead Fest brought four days of music to Ventura.
Grahame Lesh, the son of the late Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh, performed with Cubensis.
The musicians headlined the show on Friday night in the Crown Plaza’s top floor ballroom.
The ballroom that had a floor that used to spin, was filled with spinning people taking in every tune,
Some of the fans remember the historic Grateful Dead shows at the nearby Ventura County fairgrounds.
“The Grateful Dead used to play at the Ventura fairgrounds in the 1980s, ’82, ’84, and ’87 and it was amazing,” said Dandy Productions co-founder Dan Stein, “They would have weekends at the fairgrounds and every night after the show all the heads, spinning kids would come over here, they would walk back to their hotels and their campsites, they’d come up to the Holiday Inn at the time, they would walk up, go up the elevator, Top of the Harbor, look at the menu, scoff at the prices, get back in the elevators, go back down in the lobby with their dogs, their tents and they would hang out and wait for the next show to start, waves crashing on the shore, it was a blessed time to be alive and we are just still spinning in that energy, still doing the same thing, honoring the Grateful Dead’s music here in Ventura, now it is the Crown Plaza and we are still connected to all of that and we are going to keep the music alive as long as we can.”
Stein, who joined on the final set on guitar, noticed plenty of young people getting into the music, too.
“This is the first annual Summer Dead Fest and this is going to be the first of many. We plan to do this every year. We also do New Year’s Eve up in the ballroom, we did that this past New Year’s Eve and that’s actually when, right before we opened the doors for that the hotel asked us if we wanted to do a summer music festival, ” said Stein.
The festival also included oceanfront sets, a Shakedown Street and music workshops.
Some people who attended the Summer Dead Fest will be heading to San Francisco next weekend to see Dead & Company.
They can’t get enough of the music they love.
For more information visit https://summerdeadfest.com