Is there life after the Dead? To put it another way: Jerry's gone, man, deal with it. Although the Furthur Festival, which played Great Woods a week ago Wednesday, on a perfect summer afternoon, didn't make anybody in the audience forget the late guitarist (whose familiar white-bearded visage showed up on countless T-shirts), it hit an up note after reported early struggles.

Regarding Furthur, the word on the Internet -- a tool embraced enthusiastically by the Dead camp -- runs along the lines of "It's not the Dead; go with no expectations and you'll have a good time." A year after the Dead's final show and 11 months after Garcia's passing, that's sound advice. The Dead are history, and the familiar structure of their shows has been consigned to tapers' heaven. Furthur (named for the Merry Pranksters' bus) is a collaborative vaudeville, and Bob Weir and Rob Wasserman's Ratdog and Mickey Hart's Mystery Box must be accepted on their own merits.

The Tour of Lowered Expectations had a casual, almost rehearsal-like vibe exemplified by the huge tie-dyed sheets that served as makeshift stage curtains (allowing frequent glimpses of backstage goings-on, as well as continuous views of musicians and crew members peeking out from the wings). As with the Dead, the music was only part of the show, and nomadic hippie villages both inside and outside the gates were flourishing; everything from hemp hats to $2000-and-up Jerry watercolors could be had for a price. When the Dead tour touched down, locals were wont to say the circus was in town, but these days it's more like Circus Inc.; the remnants of the Dead organization are an industry like Ringling Bros., and the fat man's joining the celebrated pantheon of departed rock gods put no more of a dent in business than did the signoffs of Elvis, John Lennon, and Kurt Cobain.

The two headlining bands, with vital support from Bruce Hornsby, weren't an approximation of their former group; they delved into adventurous yet familiar territory for Deadheads' ears. That said, the biggest reactions throughout the seven-hour show were, predictably, to Dead covers. Even Los Lobos, who played with an energy belying the stage presence of a spiral-sliced smoked ham, roused the crowd only with their finale, a version of "Bertha."

Obviously feeling at home, Hornsby surmounted the Sunday-brunch jazz wallpaper he's sometimes fallen back on, keeping a pumping, if pumpingly mellow, groove going and allowing a couple of dozen Deadheads to dance on stage during "Big Boss Man." Ratdog's first 20 or 25 minutes were extremely subdued, with the near-sellout crowd standing more out of obligation than out of necessity. The Dead's "New Minglewood Blues" and "Easy Answers" perked things up, and a Hendrix-like version of "Star-Spangled Banner" was followed by boogie heaven on "Lovelight." Weir isn't a particularly good singer, but he experimented enough to keep things interesting. And give him credit for retaining 72-year-old Johnnie Johnson, the pianist on all those old Chuck Berry hits. The closing number in the finale jam, "Johnny B. Goode," was a familiar Dead warhorse, but here the steady hands on the keys were those of the guy Berry reportedly named the song after.

Mickey Hart has taken some heat from the faithful for the "commercial" sound of his latest venture, Mystery Box, but his six back-up vocalists, the Mint Juleps, provided a perfect pop-soul counterpoint for the thumpingly vital Afro-Latin polyrhythms of his all-star team of world-music percussionists. (If you missed Mystery Box at Great Woods, tune into the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics this Friday and you'll hear music composed by Hart and bandmates, along with Philip Glass. Jeez, talk about mainstreaming the counterculture.) For many, including me, they were the high point of the show; still, Hart's forays into spoken-word narratives prove that some drummers should stay behind their kits and shut up.

Hot Tuna played an electric set in the early afternoon to mostly empty seats, then returned between Mystery Box and Ratdog to mellow out the crowd with acoustic jug-band blues -- lukewarm tuna, but quite pleasant for that, with graybeard Jorma Kaukonen a reliably solid presence. British folkie John Wesley Harding was, as always, engagingly geeky. (Although he wasn't the first such type to cover "I Wanna Be Sedated"; Kirsty MacColl beat him to it last year.) Early blues throwback -- down to the requisite overalls -- Alvin Youngblood Hart delivered a competent solo set, though much of the audience used his stage time for food and bathroom breaks.

The only thing left to ponder is this: should Chuck Berry join his former bandmate, since Ratdog could use a lead guitarist? Nah, Chuck works alone, and on the Furthur bus, the survivors grope their way along, from night to night. Fans are advised to grab the delights when they can. As one bumper sticker proclaimed: WHAT, ANOTHER STRANGE TRIP?