Kennedy Center Honors will be packed full of Deadheads in 2024

The Kennedy Center Honors is an interesting thing simply because it's like an awards show without any kind of real theme. The honors are not given only for music or film. They literally could be anything. The Kennedy Center has awarded people as diverse as LL Cool J and Norman Lear (and they were honored on the same night in 2017).

This year is a little different. While some bands have a devoted following, few fan bases rival that of the Grateful Dead. The band might be fine musically, but many used to go to their concerts because of the sheer weird experience of it all. Because of this, one hopes that the 2024 Kennedy Center Honors turn into some kind of magical Deadhead night. You know, fingers crossed and all.

If you want to go, the honors will be held in Washington, D.C. on December 8 this year. The event is held at the Kennedy Center (I mean, where else?). The trick is that you should likely be a donor to the Center to get tickets. The night is a fundraiser after all, so even if you are one of the common people, you probably want to save up some money to buy something.

Grateful Dead will be one of the recipients of the 2024 Kennedy Center Honors

That doesn't mean you can set up camp outside the great hall, of course. This would be Deadhead fashion and would be a perfect response to the rich versus, well...the rest of us, while your favorite band is inside.

Besides the Grateful Dead, the Kennedy Center will honor filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola (some guy who is Nick Cage's uncle), Bonnie Raitt, Arturo Sandoval, and the Apollo Theater. How the Kennedy Center is going to fit the entire Apollo Theater building into the Center is anyone's guess, but we do not have to worry about such things.

There is some potential happiness for fans of the Dead as well. The Core Four surviving members - Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh, and Bob Weir - would be on stage together for the first time since 2015.

Some of the band members have toured since the Grateful Dead did their last show in 2015, but they have called themselves Dead & Company. In other words, other excellent musicians have been sitting in with them. Good shows, but not Grateful Dead shows.

The Kennedy Center Honors will be broadcast on CBS on December 23. So, you know...not live. CBS has shown every KCH (as the cool kids like to say) award thing since the Center started handing out trophies (or whatever) in 1978.

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