I'm Uncle Sam, that's who I am
Been hiding out, in a rock and roll band
- U.S. Blues Grateful Dead

In the days prior to the 2004 general election, the late Hunter S. Thompson insinuated an eccentric Democratic political strategy to financial website Bankrate.com. The brazenly idiosyncratic Gonzo journalist noted the key to Senator John Kerry’s victory involved rallying around "the sports writer's vote, the dope fiend's vote, and the Grateful Dead vote." No one listened.

       Four years later, however, Senator Barack Obama's landmark campaign has embraced Dr. Gonzo's seemingly unorthodox political advice. In the months preceding the election, Obama has landed an unctuous interview with ESPN's Stuart Scott, an endorsement from High Times magazine, and two ambitious concerts trumpeting support from the musical ringmasters of an iconic American counterculture behemoth, the Grateful Dead.

On October 13th, the latter trucked into State College with the intent of fueling a tie-dyed engine of political momentum. The sold-out, bacchanalian festivities inside and outside of the Bryce Jordan Center were peddled as the first reunion of pioneering Grateful Dead members Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart since a 2004 tour. Southern rock titans, the Allman Brothers, also graced the stage for the 5-hour music and political revelry.

Organized by Obama's national and Pennsylvania campaign office, the concert was a rally to energize, galvanize, and electrify Pennsylvanians and caravans of music loving Deadheads to "get out and vote" on November 4th. Guitarist Warren Haines, who played with both bands, told a crowd of 15,000, “It’s a beautiful night. It’s an historic night. Don’t forget to vote.” A videotaped message from Senator Obama ushered a sense of urgency for the days leading up to November 4th, reminding the crowd that “we ain’t wasting time no more.”

The historic benefit, thrown by the Obama campaign, was a “thank you” for the largest volunteer voter registration campaign in Pennsylvania history. Since 2004, voter registration operations across the state have blossomed into a 13 percent increase of registered Democrats. In the past year, over 500,000 more Democrats have been registered in Pennsylvania, creating over a million more registered Democrats in the state than Republicans. The concert’s goal was to translate these optimistic numbers may into crucial electoral votes for Obama.

Yet, to the casual observer, the Obama campaign’s geographic choice of Central Pennsylvania as a backdrop for a politically-motivated Grateful Dead reunion may be head-scratching. The region is known for its conservative Republican majority. In March, Obama infamously claimed its residents as bitterly clinging to “guns or religion or antipathy.” The Grateful Dead, on the other hand, projects a portrait of radical 1960’s liberal cliché, resulting in music-loving Deadheads commonly stigmatized in the public imagination as pot-smoking, wannabe vagabonds with dreadlocks.

Political irony aside, Pennsylvania retains importance in Grateful Dead sociology and history. The band claims a large Pennsylvania fan base. Over the course of the band’s four-decade history, the band has performed over 100 shows in the state, including epic three and four night runs at the Philadelphia Spectrum, where the troupe holds the record for most performances. The tie-dye three-ring circus has twice played Penn State’s Rec Hall in May of 1979 and 1980, respectively. 

Nonetheless, Andrea Mead, an Obama campaign spokeswoman, said the campaign feels confident about Obama carrying Centre County because of a huge Obama support base on and off campus. The “Change Rocks” event attempted to raise the campaign’s presence in the region. However, Mead acknowledged, “We still have plenty of work to do in Central Pennsylvania.”

The grassroots event in State College was not the band’s first battle cry for Senator Obama. On February 4th, the eve of California's "Super Tuesday" primary election, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, and Micky Hart reunited at the legendary Warfield Theater in their hometown of San Francisco. It was the group’s first attempt to mobilize Deadheads around a singular presidential candidate, a milestone in the band’s history. Before the show, guitarist Bob Weir, alleged that "The last time hope was in the air, it was ended by a bullet.” In July, drummer Mickey Heart told Billboard magazine "We're all deeply into this, into Barack Obama and the thought of taking this country back in some shape or form, what's left of it -- it's probably one thing we can all agree on."

Except not all did. Posts on the band’s official “Dead.net” message board voiced a contingency of Deadheads troubled by the band’s politically-motivated decision. Dennis McNally, official Grateful Dead historian, writes in the definitive band history, Long Strange Trip, that late band leader Jerry Garcia only voted in one election: 1964, for Lyndon Johnson, and that "it felt morally wrong to him.” Garcia would not vote again and the band has remained a-political for over 40 years.

David Gans, San Francisco-based journalist and host of the nationally syndicated “Grateful Dead Hour” radio show says fans shouldn’t be troubled about the group taking a stance around a presidential candidate. He hailed the February reunion as “the best piece of Grateful Dead music since before Jerry died.” Gans noted, “In their history, the band has espoused communities and social causes,” referring to the band playing a 1971 Black Panther rally in Oakland and a 1988 rainforest benefit at Madison Square Garden. Additionally, Weir, Kreutzmann, and Hart performed at a San Francisco post-inauguration party for Democratic Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

On October 13th, cavalcades of Deadheads with a passion for "on the bus" political idealism descended into State College in aging VW Vanagons and campers. Despite a handful of drug-related arrests, fans pleasantly milled through the preshow parking lot scene, complete with a “Shakedown Street” of enterprising Deadhead hawking beer, glasswork, food, and Obama t-shirts. Many stayed outside tailgating through the Allman Brother’s opening set, missing Greg Allman’s grizzly voice belt out guitar-driven classics such as a bluesy “Revival,” “Statesboro Blues,” and “Whipping Post.”

Not just Pennsylvanians and Penn State students attended. Staying true to the band’s freewheeling tradition, many Deadheads ventured hundreds – even thousands – of miles for the concert. On the evening before the concert, James Collins, Josh Kessler, and Steve Trushell of Montclair, New Jersey searched for Penn State football coach Joe Paterno’s house on a street north of campus. The trio of Obama supporters has attended over 150 Grateful Dead shows since 1977. Rusty and Patty Kiley drove 10 hours from North Carolina for the event, spending the weekend in Gettysburg. Behind the soundboard, New York-based lawyer Jonathan Pasternak, a self-titled “digital live music archivist,” smirked from the taper section during the set break, waiting for the lights to dim on his “about 150th” Dead show.

The crowd sparked a thunderous fuse the Dead took stage, basking in a historical reunion and the patriotic ambience of red, white, and blue stage lights. Dancers ornamented in glow rings grooved and spun in the aisles to an variety of Grateful Dead standards, including “Truckin'”, “U.S. Blues,”, “Help on the Way”, “Slipknot”, “Franklins Tower”, and “St. Stephan.” Funky, volcanic jams laced with a colorful patchwork of spacey musical pschydelia were threaded by soaring guitars, abstract harmonies, and complex polyrhythms between Hart and Kreutzmann. The crowd smiled, twirling in the warmth of the musical moment, right down to an emotional “Not Fade Away” closer.

The political wind may be strange enough to etch Deadheads into a new era and a larger narrative of Barack Obama’s revisionary American Camelot. On Election Day, this history may be decided. As the band took the stage for the encore, Weir hushed the crowd:

“I think it was Hunter Thompson. He said something back in 2004 that really caught my eye. Hunter said, 'If every Deadhead in the state of Florida would have voted in the 2000 election, it would be a very different world’ . . . Think about it."