These may be the best ones yet!
D’Angelico Guitars and HeadCount unveiled a new set of one-of-a-kind, hand-painted guitars for the Dead & Company Summer Tour 2017, to support the Participation Row social action village. These five specialty axes will be signed by every member of the band and auctioned at various stops on the tour.
The funds generated from the auction will split between between HeadCount, REVERB and about a dozen other non-profit organizations with longstanding ties to the Grateful Dead community.
The sixth guitar, featuring a Steal Your Face on its front and back, will be given away for free to one lucky fan. To enter the drawing, anyone in attendance just needs to visit three non-profit organizations on Participation Row and take a socially-conscious action at each..The drawing – won last year by Hillary M. of Branford, Connecticut – takes place at the end of the tour. .
A free, limited-edition, numbered Dead & Co. pins will also be given to anyone who completes three actions,, courtesy of Participation Row sponsor Clean Energy Advisors.
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The customized guitars are a tradition that began with the Grateful Dead’s Fare Thee Well 50th Anniversary concerts and has continued with each ensuing Dead & Company tour. The guitar auctions, organized by HeadCount, have raised over $750,000 for various “Dead-Family” charities over the last two years. The first guitar in the series was played on stage by Bob Weir during a Fare Thee Well concert in Santa Clara, CA on June 28th, 2015. It sold one week later in Chicago for an eye-popping $526,000, with 17 different charities netting $32,000 each.
Last summer, several of the custom D’Angelico guitars sold for $30,000 or more.
The charity guitar series inspired a collaboration between Weir and D’Angelico that led to the release of Weir’s own signature model, debuting a prototype on stage last summer and then the retail version this year.
The summer tour 2017 auction guitars are all Premier Weir SS models that commemorate tour stops at: Shoreline Amphitheater (Mountain View, CA), Folsom Field (Boulder, CO), Fenway Park (Boston) and Wrigley Field (Chicago). One guitar will also represent the entire tour, with an auction that lasts for more than a month.
A different signed poster will also be auctioned at each stop on the tour.
Participation Row is organized by HeadCount and REVERB to foster a culture of giving back, protecting the planet and being active citizens. Summer tour 2017 features HeadCount registering voters and signing up fans for election alerts; REVERB offering reusable water bottles and a free water refill station; Clean Energy Advisors providing education on climate change, and a rotating cast of guest non-profit organizations each with a different action at their booths.
Last year, Participation Row saw Dead & Co. fans take over 20,000 separate actions, while over $165,000 was raised through the guitar and poster auctions.
For more information about Participation Row, its beneficiaries or the Positive Legacy volunteer action days, head here.