This Saturday, Cal’s football team takes the field against Wake Forest wearing the Grateful Dead. Steal Your Face in navy and gold on the sides, lightning bolts down a tie-dye stripe, and a parade of dancing bears around the back, one of them in a Cal sweater. The campus and stadium bookstores are selling the officially licensed tees and hoodies all weekend.
The Grateful Dead played their last show in 1995. Several of them aren’t in the Dead anymore because they’re actually dead. Every kid on that field was born after it ended. So how does a band that stopped playing three decades ago end up on a college helmet?
