Europe '72

Press coverage of the Europe ’72 tour was extensive. Europeans had shared the American fascination with all things Haight-Ashbury in the sixties and the international aspects of the hippie phenomenon, and coverage of the tour welcomed the Dead as ambassadors. In general, the European press corps treated the band kindly and seriously, and band members responded with a seriousness often absent in their American press encounters, answering questions with few traces of their Pranksteresque irony. Most press coverage was unique to the band, but one of their shows, the Bickershaw Festival, folded their efforts into a larger story of English hippiedom as it gave way to the British incarnation of modern rock theater.