It was another jam-packed night outside the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. You would have thought you were seeing Furthur on New Year’s Eve 2009 all over again. It was just about impossible to get into line outside the arena as there were so many people walking up and down the cordons with their pointer fingers in the air hoping for some miracle ticket to gain entry into DeadHeads kingdom; a Furthur show.

The Grateful Web's Nancy Levine recently had an opportunity to speak to Billy Kreutzmann, drummer for the Grateful Dead about playing again as 'The Dead,' his love for ocean and sea mammal protection, and what profession Billy would like to attempt were he not playing music...

GW: How has the tour gone?

You might still think this was 1973.  I did for a second, as I watched the tie-dye clad Deadheads trekking through wheat-colored fields, on a pilgrimage to Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View on Sunday evening to catch the band now known as The Dead.

The Dead (their ONLY summer appearance!), Bob Dylan, The String Cheese Incident, Willie Nelson & Family, and The Black Crowes will top the bill of over 60 diverse and stellar artists at the second annual ROTHBURY Festival at the Double JJ Ranch in Michigan on July 2-3-4-5, 2009.

Of all the members of the Grateful Dead, Billy Kreutzmann, really knew how to retire.  Hanging out in Hawaii, he showed none of the predilection for road-warrioring into the sunset like his bandmates.  Sure he'd play with the boys when they got back together for the full band gigs and after ten years on the island he started playing out more often with various old cronies, but he didn't have his name on the marquee with his band, his music, his beat.  He was always the one behind the scenes.

In the late sixties and early seventies they had Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, but they didn't quite have in sound and performance what Bill Kreutzmann's power trio has today. The Grateful Dead drummer was joined on stage Saturday night at the Fox Theater with the Allman Brothers Band's Oteil Burbridge on bass and Max Creek's Scott Murawski on lead guitar.

I'm over my wishy-washy indecision about which show to review up next for y'all.

In many ways the Grateful Dead's music was destined from the beginning to be a symphony, much as the band itself was an orchestra with core members and a rotating cast lending a hand.  When I was a kid and my father would listen to them I would immediately be able to draw similarities due to the complexities between their music and classical.  Perhaps that's why it's fitting that finally after all these years someone has finally written a symphony which is based on and inspired by the