{"id":4628,"date":"2026-07-21T21:06:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T21:06:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=4628"},"modified":"2026-07-21T21:06:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T21:06:24","slug":"summer-tour-review-a-documentary-about-deadheads-thats-as-blissed-out-and-navel-gazing-as-its-subjects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=4628","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Summer Tour\u2019 Review: A Documentary About Deadheads That\u2019s as Blissed-Out and Navel-Gazing as Its Subjects"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<!-- do not apply CSS styles to this element! --><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>\n\tIf you wanted to come up with a cynical definition of what we now think of as \u201cthe \u201960s,\u201d you could call it five years of middle-class kids slumming. Obviously, there was more to the counterculture than that. But that was a big part of it \u2014 and the middle-classness of it all, the fact that so many kids \u201cdropped out\u201d because they could afford to drop out, should not be forgotten. (The revolution was about protest, but it was also about selling designer psychedelic candles.)<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=4626\">Clipping Comes to the Movies: How Micro-Influencer Agency SGG Media Helps the Ground Game for Hollywood Marketing<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n\tIf you wanted to come up with the cynical definition of a Deadhead, the term that describes those blissed-out nomad followers of the Grateful Dead, you could call them middle-class kids dropping out to cosplay the \u201960s. They\u2019ve been doing it for quite a while, and Mischa Richter\u2019s rambling Deadhead documentary \u201cSummer Tour\u201d reminds us that they\u2019re still at it.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe movie, which counts Chlo\u00eb Sevigny as one of its producers, unveils the 2023 version of Deadheads, who are seen following the national tour of Dead &amp; Company (whose members include key remnants of the Dead), in what was billed as the group\u2019s final tour. (Now that Bob Weir has passed away, the nail is most definitely in that coffin.) As the documentary captures, we are currently in the third generation of Deadheads. The first were the original hippie followers of the Dead. The second were their self-consciously blissed-out 1980s and \u201990s inheritors (a tidal wave of fandom you can date roughly up through Jerry Garcia\u2019s death, in 1995). The third generation are the shaggy Zoomers we see in \u201cSummer Tour,\u201d notably the two central figures, Jeremiah Pierce and Annabelle Dunne, known as Jerry and Annie.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThey\u2019re a couple in their early-to-mid-twenties who drive around the country in their macram\u00e9-and-potted-plant-bedecked van, following the 2023 Dead &amp; Company tour. The two resemble <em>so<\/em> many Deadheads, who have a quintessential look to them that\u2019s all about \u201cfreedom,\u201d though it\u2019s also a costume: the blondish-brown long hair (with possible dreds), the tie-dye shirts and peasant dresses, the nose rings and beaded wrist bracelets, the dirty bare feet, the general air of homeless \u201call-American\u201d stoner kids on a permanent vacation.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThey\u2019ve turned hanging out into a mission, which makes them not so far removed from the heroes of \u201cWayne\u2019s World.\u201d But the Deadheads also evince an honest yearning for something that\u2019s tribal, primitive, sacred, ancient, shamanic, ecstatic. Watching the documentary, you can\u2019t help but empathize with their desire to find an alternative lifestyle. But it also occurs to you that this wouldn\u2019t be a bad setting for \u201cMidsommar II.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=4624\">Carole Radziwill Confronted About Jeffrey Epstein Connection in \u2018RHONY\u2019 Season 16 Trailer: \u2018You Think I\u2019m Part of an International Sex-Trafficking Ring?\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n\tAnnie is from the luxe city of Santa Cruz, Ca., while Jerry is from upstate New York, where the two go to visit his parents, who live in a large home with cabin trappings. His father is a police officer, and his family has been in the military since the days of the Civil War. But Jerry, who likes to strum a guitar and resembles a long-haired Cheshire cat, isn\u2019t rebelling against all of that; he loves his parents and doesn\u2019t seem to have a rebellious bone in his body. \u201cPeople around here are very traditional,\u201d he says, by which I think he means they have traditional paychecks, the kind that can enable Jerry to roam for a while.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe wandering fan carnival we see in \u201cSummer Tour\u201d is a tie-dyed Spring Break that never ends. But the documentary, to a fault, mirrors the Deadheads\u2019 rambling aura and general absence of structure. The movie will show us a few minutes of Jerry and Annie, or a handful of other Deadheads, explaining what they\u2019re up to, and then it will cut to an interlude of in-concert dancing, which takes one of two forms: There is <em>swaying<\/em> and there is <em>twirling<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tAs we\u2019ve seen in previous Deadhead documentaries, like \u201cTie-Died: Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll\u2019s Most Dedicated Fans\u201d (1995), the main thing that Deadheads like to do, in addition to dancing while tripping on acid, is to talk about how happy and free they are and what an amazing community they have. The word <em>community <\/em>comes up a lot. They\u2019re a clan of fellow travelers, united in doing what they please, even if it\u2019s the same thing over and over again: driving, skinny dipping, more driving, then putting down stakes for a few days in Shakedown Street (the name taken from the Dead\u2019s 1978 song and album), the open-air marketplace that\u2019s set up outside the concerts, where the Deadheads gather to sell vegan grilled-cheese sandwiches, hand-made clothing, and arts and crafts.<\/p>\n<p>\n\tI don\u2019t necessarily mind the fact that a Deadhead documentary rambles. But what\u2019s peculiar, and telling, about \u201cSummer Tour\u201d is that the film offers no larger vantage \u2014 no sense of who these people are outside their Deadhead wanderings, and no larger perspective on how the whole Deadhead thing now fits into the culture. \u201cSummer Tour\u201d weaves in dozens of Dead songs (both recorded and live versions), but it\u2019s a jellyfish of a documentary; it has no dramatic spine. It\u2019s all good vibes and stoner aphorisms. But you could also say that the reason the movie never bestirs itself to be more than that is that the whole Deadhead carnival, in its beatific and non-threatening way, is at heart a sprawling, flaked-out festival of privilege. If you looked at it too closely, the whole thing might crumble.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/relocationobserver.com\/?p=4622\">Wyatt Russell\u2019s Monsterverse Series Casts Corey Stoll, Ralph Ineson, Nyasha Hatendi<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<h2>\n<p>\t\t\u2018Summer Tour\u2019 Review: A Documentary About Deadheads That\u2019s as Blissed-Out and Navel-Gazing as Its Subjects<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<h2>\n<p>\t\tReviewed online, July 20, 2026. MPA Running time: 82 MIN.<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<strong>Production:<\/strong><br \/>\nA Utopia release of a Liddell Entertainment, Easy Wind production, in association with King Bee productions. Producers: Mischa Richter, Mickey Liddell, Pete Shilaimon, Evelina Kirgan, Chlo\u00eb Sevigny, Lizzie Nastro. Executive producers: Ryan L. Miller, Michael Glassman, Emily Mortimer, Bernie Cahill.\t\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n<strong>Crew:<\/strong><br \/>\nDirector: Mischa Richter. Camera: Hayden Mason. Editor: Jay Rabinowitz. Music: The Grateful Dead, Dead &amp; Company.\t\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n<strong>With:<\/strong><br \/>\nJeremiah Pierce, Annabelle Dunne. \t\t\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;re now into the third generation of Deadheads, whose long strange trip continues as a Deadhead couple follow Dead &#038; Company&#8217;s 2023 tour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4627,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3706,3707],"class_list":["post-4628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","tag-summer-tour","tag-the-grateful-dead"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>\u2018Summer Tour\u2019 Review: A Documentary About Deadheads That\u2019s as Blissed-Out and Navel-Gazing as Its Subjects - 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