San Francisco ? The Grateful Dead may not be the same without Jerry, but that isn’t stopping fans from trekking to a tiny Wisconsin town for a landmark reunion tour this weekend.

“I’m just a huge fan of their music,” said Rik Sheldon, 25, who works for a San Francisco investment management firm. He’s meeting a friend in Minnesota and they’ll drive south together to East Troy, Wis. He bought two tickets for about $60 each, for both days of the concert, Saturday and Sunday.

Michael Miley bangs his drum for fellow Deadheads in the parking lot before the Further Festival in Reno, Nev., in this July 1996 file photo. The four surviving original members of the Grateful Dead are playing this weekend at Alpine Valley in East Troy, Wis.

“There are only a few bands out there where every show is a different show. You never know what they’re going to play. It won’t be the same without Jerry, but it will still be a monumental occasion.”

After lead singer Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995, the Dead retired from touring. The band’s surviving members put on a show every now and then as The Other Ones.

But all four surviving founding members bassist Phil Lesh, guitarist Bob Weir, and drummers Bill Kreutzman and Mickey Hart have been on the same stage only twice since Garcia’s death: once in 1998 and then last New Year’s Eve in Oakland, Calif., said the Dead’s longtime publicist, Dennis McNally.

The four quickly sold 70,000 tickets to the two shows this weekend.

“They played together for 30 years, then they had basically seven years off,” McNally said. “There was an enormous amount of joy in playing together again.”

Initially, Walworth County, Wis., authorities denied the band a permit, fearing that thousands of their fans known as Deadheads would show up with booze, drugs and mayhem. The officials relented, however.

If all goes smoothly at the venue, the Alpine Valley Music Theatre, The Other Ones plan a 15-show arena tour of the Midwest and East Coast in November and December.