Furthur rumours – breaking up, or spring tour 2012?

by happycat! >^.^<m~ | Dec 8, 2011 | Uncategorized | 9 comments

Rumors have been flying for months (years really) that this New Years Eve weekend in San Francisco will be the LAST Furthur shows EVER!

Furthur extending the rumors is the fact that Phil Lesh is doing a few shows returning to his Phil Lesh and Friends format, a band with a long history of varied line-ups.  Phil is doing a show this weekend at the Warren  Haynes X-Mas Jam and then a set of three shows in Colorado in February with a slightly different line-up.  We previously shared that news here.

Now these rumors go on every year, and people want to believe it, partially because of Phil’s age, and also his recent efforts to open a small concert space nearer to his home, make people think he wants to get off the road.

Then,adding fuel to the fire that Furthur was finished, Bob Weir goes and announces his run of shows for Spring 2012.  These dates were replacing the solo dates he had to cancel last Summer, but some read it to mean he was moving in a new direction.

I have talked to certain people who know the people who know… and the truth of Furthur ending their touring days is – no fucking way!  Or in the words of Phil Lesh, (back when the rumors were flyin’ he was retiring back in the 90’s): It’s A Bullshit Lie!

They are taking a short break, probably about 4 months.

In addition to Phil and Bob’s extra shows, you can probably expect more from John Kadlecik’s John K Band and from Jeff Pehrson’s The Fall Risk.  Joe Russo is in too many bands to list, Sunshine Garcia Becker has SoVoSo  and Jeff Chimenti will be golfing and inventing medical devices somewhere!

In fact, they are all SO busy, how can we be sure Furthur is returning in the spring? First off,  Gary Lambert had to make several statements to the contrary of the rumors on his Sirius Satellite show, Tales From The Golden Road.  Gary works directly with the Dead and Furthur on many things, and he is what one would call a very reliable source. Gary also squashed rumors that Bob was ill.  Simply not true.

Then, today, someone came across a small graphical artifact that confirmed that
FURTHUR IS PLANNING A SPRING TOUR 2012!
When looking into ticket information for the Philharmonia concert (featuring Phil and Bob) –  someone saw this graphic on the ticketing page.

We’re not leaking any dates, just sharing what is publicly out there.  But I would take this as a POSITIVE confirmation that we all get to go a little bit Furthur than we’ve gone before – might as well take that ride again!

Furthur does tend to announce things on Friday.  And last years Spring tour was announced around this time last year… be sure to check www.furthur.net and follow @furthurband on twitter.

Of course, DHL will always tell you when we know for sure!  We are not rumor mongers, and even defer to Furthur to make the announcements of their tours – but holy sheet! A leak like this, we got to let you know!

Furthur details as we get them…