Meta Description: Discover why the Grateful Dead never toured Australia despite their massive following and how Aussie Deadheads still keep the band’s legacy alive.
For a band renowned for their extensive live performances, it’s surprising that the Grateful Dead only performed in 12 countries throughout their 30-year career. Despite their love for touring, all but 64 of their more than 2,300 shows took place in the United States and Canada. They did, however, manage multiple tours of Europe and even performed gigs in Egypt and Jamaica.
The Grateful Dead’s European tour in 1972 was a career highlight, with the final show in London moving Jerry Garcia to tears. Their relentless touring schedule, even after Garcia’s diabetic coma in 1986, was so inspiring that it motivated Paul McCartney to return to the stage.
Given this, it seems strange that the Grateful Dead never made it to Australia, a country with one of the largest psych-rock followings during the late 1960s. With thousands of members in social media groups like Australian Deadheads and Deadheads Down Under, as well as the influence of the Dead on bands like Tame Impala and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, it’s clear that the Grateful Dead had a following in Australia.
So why didn’t the Grateful Dead tour Australia, a land with a vibrant psychedelic fanbase?
Bang for the Buck? Legendary Aussie music promoter Michael Chugg, who brought the Police and the Cure to Australia, revealed that it was simply too much of a gamble for anyone in the Australian entertainment business to take a punt on the Grateful Dead. According to Chugg, there wasn’t enough evidence of a significant Australian Deadhead constituency to justify the costly flights from the US and the extensive staging required across various cities in Australia.
It’s a shame, considering the Dead’s fanbase Down Under has likely grown since the untimely death of Jerry Garcia ended their 30-year run as a live band. If the Grateful Dead were able to perform in Sydney or Melbourne today, they might have sold out an arena. Perhaps not on the scale of their US stadium tours, where crowds reached as many as 70,000 people, but certainly enough to justify the journey and bring joy to thousands of Aussie Deadheads.
Even with reunions and new iterations of bands featuring original members of the Grateful Dead, it’s clear that the essence of the Dead died with Garcia. Yet, for tens of thousands of Deadheads around the world, the mystique of the band lives on through recordings of their gigs, stories of what it was like to be there, and the imagination of the real magic that was a Dead live show. This longing is as true for young Americans as it is for older generations of Deadheads abroad.
