At Harvard, Dead Live Gratefully

It's not easy being Dead.

But John A. Shanker '95 wouldn't want to live any other way.

A couple of summers ago, Shanker and some friends joined up with the Grateful Dead, the legendary rock band, for a tour along the West Coast. He spent weeks living with Dead-heads, and eventually becoming a fully-credentialed member of the cult.

"It's like a family of people," Shanker says, "a tribe of people, who live a nomadic lifestyle sort of like the yogis of old, who by my experience, try to live by the principles that govern the universe."

While disdaining labels, Shanker calls the Dead an "entryway to the spiritual path."

"These are pretty old terms," Shanker says, "but the whole scene is an expression of something that could be different."

Deadheads follow the band to live according to simpler principles than those our success-driven modern society, Shanker says. Those are his values.

"Some of the people we were with, they travel around in a cut-up VW and they live in it, they cook in it," says Shanker, who wrote about his first Dead concert on his application to Harvard. "They sell burritos on the tour in order to support themselves."

Few Harvard students are as devoted as Shanker, but on a campus also stocked with poets, hockey players, actors and young entrepreneurs, there is no shortage of Deadheads.

Many of them got a taste of the band this week. The Dead, a much misunderstood phenomenon, rolled into Boston this week and brought its family of thousands.

For six shows in Boston Garden, the Dead created a spiritual community, Deadheads say.

"It's hard to explain," says Chris Nee '95, who has already caught two Dead shows this week. "I feel good when I listen to the Dead, usually."

Being a Deadhead at Harvard means being deadicated. Most of the time, there are more important things to worry about than the band, like exams, theses and, well, newspaper articles.

"I think their music is beautiful and certain sounds in the music can make you feel spiritual because it's so pretty," says Sheridan J. Pauker '96.

Still, Pauker, like most of her classmates, is not ready to leave Harvard for the open road.

"If you wanted to live the lifestyle to the fullest extent," she says, "then you would probably have difficulty being a 'successful Harvard student.'"

'Crisis in Spirituality'

Last year, the Dead sold 1.5 million tickets for their semi-permanent concert tour, and this is from a band that has not released new material in almost five years.

What is the fascination behind these aging performers that has made their music a way of life?

Deadhead David Shenk is something of an expert. The 28-year Brown graduate has been attending shows for the last 12 years, and now he's written a book about the Dead phenomena. He was at the Coop yesterday for a book signing session.

"There's a deep, spiritual feeling that comes from the lyrics," he says. "People find real meaning in the music itself and in the community of fans in coming to shows."

Shenk says some people become Deadheads for the same reason others worship God: they find meaning in the band that is lacking in other venues of American life.

"A lot of people talk about a sort of modern crisis in spirituality in America," he says, "and it's definitely true."