Grateful Dead ‘Fare Thee Well’ Shows Almost Featured a Jerry Garcia Hologram

The late Jerry Garcia's daughter has confirmed that his estate explored the idea of projecting a hologram of the late Grateful Dead legend during the band's Fare Thee Well reunion shows.

"We came very close to making the Jerry hologram," Trixie Garcia, whose father died in 1995 when she was 20, tells Billboard. "I met with people and was very interested in trying to make the Jerry hologram where he appears for a couple seconds – like a rainbow."

Ultimately, licensing issues and technological issues scuttled the plan, however. "It just didn't work out," Trixie adds. "It was too much."

In a way, however, it all worked out. Trixie Garcia was among the 40,000-plus who attended the opening Fare Thee Well concert on June 27 at Santa Clara, Calif., when a perfect rainbow actually appeared above the stage where the remaining core four of Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh and Bob Weir performed.

"I was taking pictures of the crowd and everyone was crying," Garcia said. "It was the most amazing moment. It was twilight and there was this wonderful purple fuzziness over everything."

The Grateful Dead have completed two of the scheduled five Fare Thee Well dates, with the next trio of shows shifting to Chicago's Soldier Field on Friday. They're being joined by Phish's Trey Anastasio, as well as keyboardists Bruce Hornsby and Jeff Chimenti.

Trixie's hope for this weekend's concerts? That Anastasio cuts loose a little more. "People were saying they thought he was being timid," Garcia admits, "but there's a lot of great musicians on stage and the mark of a good musician is not trying to hog all the stage time. He's a conscientious guy and I hope by the 4th that he starts being a little pushier."

See Photos from the Grateful Dead's ‘Fare Thee Well’ Opening Night