The more serious issue for those interested in taking the pulse of an aging phenomenon is the way the fans have changed. This summer, say people who have attended concerts, the demand for free tickets has been greater than ever. But even the band has grown tired of freeloaders. In a letter sent to fans over the Internet that carried the group's ubiquitous skeleton logo, the Dead put it on the line. Allow bottle-throwing gate crashers to keep on thinking they are cool anarchists instead of the creeps they are.
Dedicated fans concur.
But at least as often, probably more often, we have seen audience members with painfully constricted cultural horizons who think that following the Grateful Dead is, in and of itself, a valid social statement or contribution to society. So the hangers-on, the uninformed and uninspired rub elbows with the pure at heart.