Soulful, independent artist Alana Hil told us about her Grateful Dead celebration experience...
Alana Hil: My favorite concert experience by far happened at Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of the Grateful Dead in Chicago — and not just one night, but all three. I did the full run, because in the jam band world, every show is different: no setlist is ever repeated, every moment holds new possibilities. In college, I was pulled into that festival, psychedelic, community-minded realm, and the first time I heard the Dead, I felt something physical in the sound — like I could almost touch it as it poured out of the speaker. Getting to see the surviving members together for a final time was more than nostalgia; it was witnessing a chapter of musical history close in real time.
There’s something spiritual about those shows. The culture surrounding the Grateful Dead goes beyond music — it’s about connection, about collective energy. I joined in fully, letting myself be swept up in the love, the improvisation, the crowd dancing and singing to one another, even those who didn’t know one another. That experience taught me something about freedom: how music can be a kind of home. I ended up living that freedom in real life for years—traveling in vans, living in teepees, other countries, following the music—because those nights revealed to me that belonging doesn’t always look like what people expect.
It’s hard to explain to someone who hasn’t felt it, but those three nights transformed me. The improvisation, the trust between musicians, and the way the audience completely breathed with the band… I shed many tears. That show wasn’t just the best I’ve ever seen — it was the one that reshaped what I thought a concert could be. “Fare thee well, Fare thee well, I love you more than words can tell. Listen to the river sing sweet songs that rock my soul.”
Alana Hil's Diaries of a Common Woman EP is out now.
Photo by Printz Board
