The Grateful Dead's Tragic Real-Life Story

Surviving members of the band gathered for a series of farewell concerts in 2015 that were dubbed "Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of the Grateful Dead." While they did only five shows in Chicago and Santa Clara, the band made over $52 million in revenue ... and a few waves in the process.

The concerts were legendary, some people said, for either their guest appearances, which included Phish's Trey Anastasio and singer/pianist Bruce Hornsby, and the high ticket prices. According to Time, many tickets, initially priced between a fairly reasonable $60 and $200, were quickly snatched up by scalpers. Some tried to sell them online for thousands, with one ambitious seller asking an astronomical $116,000 for a three-day pass. In the days leading up to the shows, however, the prices for tickets on the secondary market dropped dramatically.

By then, though, bad press and ill-tempered fans had roundly criticized the shows. Rolling Stone went so far to call the whole shebang a "50th anniversary hullabaloo [that] has been a rock & roll cash grab to rival any that have come before, on every level."

If that wasn't bad enough, Billboard and others even managed to critique a rainbow that majestically appeared over the crowd during the first show in Santa Clara. A rumor went around claiming that it was simulated and had cost $50,000 to slap up in the sky during a 17-minute version of "Viola Lee Blues." We may never know.