The One Raises the Dead (And I Bet the Old Souls are Grateful)

I suspect this would be much less of a story without the wordplay and image building that it enables:

After Lesh, who had never publicly supported a presidential candidate, threw his lot in with Obama, he was anxious to do a benefit concert for him. But he was all but done with The [Grateful] Dead, so it was going to feature his other band, Phil and Friends.

"My son Brian said, 'No Daddy, you've got to get The Dead together because it will be so much more meaningful and important,''' the musician chuckled during a recent phone interview.

One benefit performance led to another and then an inaugural ball concert. Next thing they knew, Lesh, guitarist Bob Weir and drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann were back together.

"It came off so well that we thought we owe it to ourselves to play again,'' Lesh said. "It brings out something in all of us, in our gestalt and our totality, that we can't deliver, we can't find anywhere else.''

In real terms, what happened, here? A charismatic candidate stirred up a cultural happening that led a handful of aging hippies who'd had nothing significant to do since the death of their lead guy to jamb together. They found that they preferred the life to which they'd grown accustomed, and they've picked it up again, at least for a short-term basis. Process that through two products of pop culture myth-making, and you reinforce both.