‘Summer Tour’ Review: A Documentary About Deadheads That’s as Blissed-Out and Navel-Gazing as Its Subjects

If one were inclined toward cynicism, what we now romanticize as "the 1960s" could be reduced to a brief period when privileged youth merely pretended to adopt working-class lifestyles. The counterculture, of course, represented far more than this caricature suggests. Yet the middle-class safety net that enabled so many to "drop out" remains a crucial, frequently overlooked component of that era's social fabric. This movement was paradoxically built on both genuine dissent and commercial enterprise—a tension visible in everything from mass-produced psychedelic posters to high-end hippie apparel. In a similar vein, the "Deadhead"—those blissfully wandering devotees of the Grateful Dead—might cynically be described as a fortunate young person dropping out of conventional society to recreate the 1960s experience. This tradition has persisted for decades, and Mischa Richter's sprawling documentary "Summer Tour" demonstrates its continued vitality in the present day.

Co-produced by actress Chloë Sevigny—best known for her provocative roles in "Kids" (1995) and "American Psycho" (2000)—the film introduces viewers to the 2023 iteration of Deadheads as they follow the national tour of Dead & Company. This supergroup includes surviving core members of the original Grateful Dead, among them guitarist Bob Weir, whose ongoing performances have helped cement the band's enduring legacy. Notably, the Grateful Dead formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California, and their distinctive fusion of rock, folk, and extended improvisational jams cultivated a devoted following that has remarkably outlasted the band's original incarnation. Richter's documentary captures what can now be identified as the third generation of Deadheads. The first wave comprised the original hippie devotees from the band's formative years. The second wave emerged during the 1980s and 1990s—a deliberately euphoric surge of fandom that largely concluded with Jerry Garcia's death in 1995. The third generation consists of the shaggy Zoomers featured prominently in "Summer Tour," particularly the central couple, Jeremiah Pierce and Annabelle Dunne, affectionately known as Jerry and Annie. In their early-to-mid-twenties, they traverse the country in a van adorned with macramé and potted plants, chasing the 2023 Dead & Company tour across multiple states.

Jerry and Annie perfectly embody the classic Deadhead aesthetic—a visual language that professes "freedom" yet functions as an unmistakable uniform: long, blondish-brown hair (sometimes styled in dreads), tie-dye shirts and peasant dresses, nose rings and beaded bracelets, dirty bare feet, and the overall impression of homeless, all-American stoner kids on an endless vacation. They have transformed hanging out into what amounts to full-time employment, not unlike the beloved slackers of "Wayne's World." Yet these Deadheads simultaneously demonstrate a genuine yearning for something tribal, primitive, sacred, and ecstatic. While watching the documentary, one can understand their search for an alternative lifestyle, though it's difficult not to imagine this setting as a potential backdrop for "Midsommar II." Annie hails from the relatively affluent city of Santa Cruz, California, while Jerry comes from upstate New York. When they visit Jerry's parents, who reside in a spacious cabin-like home, we learn his father serves as a police officer, and his family has maintained military service traditions since the Civil War era. Jerry, who strums a guitar and resembles a long-haired Cheshire cat with his enigmatic smile, isn't rebelling against this background; he clearly loves his parents and appears entirely devoid of rebellious impulses. "People around here are very traditional," he observes, presumably referring to traditional employment—precisely the kind that allows Jerry to roam freely for extended periods. This economic foundation represents a crucial element of the Deadhead lifestyle, as sustaining months on the road typically requires financial support from family members or carefully accumulated savings.

The wandering fan carnival depicted in "Summer Tour" resembles a tie-dyed, seemingly endless Spring Break. However, the documentary mirrors the Deadheads' rambling nature and lack of structure, perhaps to its own detriment. It presents brief moments of Jerry and Annie, or other Deadheads, explaining their activities, then cuts to concert interludes featuring essentially two types of dancing: gentle swaying and enthusiastic twirling. As seen in earlier Deadhead documentaries like "Tie-Died: Rock 'n' Roll's Most Dedicated Fans" (1995), the primary pastime for Deadheads—beyond dancing while under the influence of LSD—involves talking about their happiness, freedom, and remarkable community. The word "community" appears with striking frequency. They constitute a clan of fellow travelers united in doing precisely as they please, even if that proves remarkably repetitive: driving, swimming naked, more driving, then settling for a few days in Shakedown Street (named after the Dead's 1978 song and album). This open-air marketplace outside concerts serves as the gathering point where Deadheads sell vegan grilled-cheese sandwiches, handmade clothing, and various crafts. Shakedown Street has evolved into a cultural institution in its own right, transforming from a modest gathering of vendors into a sprawling bazaar that sometimes rivals the actual concert in both size and energetic atmosphere.

I don't inherently object to a Deadhead documentary being deliberately rambling. Yet what proves peculiar and revealing about "Summer Tour" is its conspicuous absence of broader perspective—no meaningful sense of who these people are outside their Deadhead wanderings, and no contextual framework for how this subculture fits into contemporary society. The film weaves in dozens of Dead songs (both recorded and live performances), yet it remains essentially a jellyfish of a documentary, lacking any dramatic spine. It offers nothing but good vibes and stoner aphorisms. One might argue that the reason the movie never pushes beyond this surface level is that the entire Deadhead carnival—in its beatific, fundamentally non-threatening way—represents essentially a sprawling, flaked-out festival of privilege. If examined too closely, the whole enterprise might begin to unravel. As cultural critic Sarah Jenkins observed in a recent interview, "The Deadhead phenomenon has always represented a curious blend of genuine spiritual seeking and economic entitlement, a tension that documentaries rarely address head-on." This observation illuminates a central paradox: the movement's search for authenticity frequently depends upon a level of material comfort that most participants would prefer not to acknowledge.