Just wondering y’all’s input on Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead thing?
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The most extraordinary thing about them is much like jazZ they improvised off each other and went with it never played the same song the same way …I also think it’s cool that if you were born between 1970-1990s there’s like a 75% chance you can hear your birthday show unfortunately the dead played the day before and after mine but still cool IMO 
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For me it’s this song:
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Many years of parking lot fun at Cal Expo in the 80s. Bill Graham Presents dayz…
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The parking lot scene. Never seen anything like it,
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My mum used to take me to see quite a few bands unfortunately never got to see the dead.
Although I had a grateful dead sticker on my bedroom door when I was about 4 years old as my mum has seen them a couple of times.
She did take me to see the who, the stones, pink floyd, super tramp, van Morrison and chuck Berry among others.
What made the greatful dead great for me was how there like session musicians and the way they fed off each over and improvised.
I thought jerry Garcia band done some good stuff too when he doing his own thing.
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Thank you brother for enlightening me 
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Good topic!!! I’m 42 years old and have seen the dead before and after Jerry. The parking lot scene, the happy people and all the mind altering things that reel in your mind, great musicians. They tease your mind and blend all the songs together and tease you into thinking you know what song is next. They Hypnotize you! Grab your soul and spin it around the galaxy and drop you off back on solid ground with a smile on your face and a new prospective on life. One of my favorite lines is " the heat came 'round and busted me for smiling on a cloudy day " and "sometimes you can get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right " just an incredible experience!!! Anyone that has melted down slowly and warmly at a grateful dead show knows exactly what I’m talking about
I apologize to everyone that has not seen the dead. Just remembering the show’s I’ve seen makes my mind tingle
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LOL at the title…
I grew up where they “lived”, the drummer’s daughter was a schoolmate, and my buddy owns one of their houses. None of my circle listened to them much at all. 
So weir d . Ha!
the grass is always greener!
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I didn’t appreciate them in my youth either lol
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I have enjoyed the Dead for a long time. The Grateful Dead shows were unique experiences, the camaraderie and good will was palpable…what pure fun. Last time I saw them was June 1973 at RFK Stadium in DC.
I still listen to the Dead at least once a week.
Enjoyment of music is very subjective, as are all other fine pursuits in life.
Jerry said it well:
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I didn’t see them in their prime, but used to plan all my vacations around the band’s touring schedule in the 1990s. They aren’t for everyone - see the licorice quote above - and they could play sloppy at times, but that was part of the charm. Every show was unique. They never played the same setlist twice and many of their songs called for improvisation, making them worth seeing repeatedly. They took musical risks that created true beauty when the stars aligned. Some nights were transcendent, but even the clunkers were a good time. There was a rush of excitement, knowing there was a chance of witnessing something truly special.
The band was innovative. They, along with benefactor and sound guru Owsley “Bear” Stanley, reinvented live concert sound systems. Have you seen the Wall Of Sound?. They say it sounded good even a half mile away!
Fans snuck in equipment to record their performances since each night was different. This eventually led to the creation of a band-sanctioned tapers section where fans could bring microphones to a show and create decent recordings. The free trade of these recordings among fans spread the word and helped establish a rabid fanbase. Today you can stream 14,000+ of those recordings at Archive.org for free.
They only had minimal mainstream success, yet were among the top touring bands in the world because of their unique approach. They created a way to sell tickets directly to fans to avoid ticket company monopolies, and put nifty art on the stubs.
I obsessively collected concert recordings of the Dead back in the day. At one point I had over 1000 cassette tapes of them and spent a couple of years listening to nothing else.
When Jerry died I went through several years of not listening to their music, but these days I might throw on a live show for background tunes while I’m working from home.
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Beat me to it regarding the wall of sound he was well ahead of his time …
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That sounds really cool! I bet that was something else , wish I could at least went to one to see what it was like back then Skunk Va. was talking about them and I was just wondering what ALL the fuse was about thanx
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What is extraordinary about the Grateful Dead? Absolutely nothing. Thee most unrocking band EVER. I’d rather listen to John Denver on loop. lol
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Hmmm lets see how many people I can piss of here haha
I’m not a deadhead but I like alot of their tunes and think they’re a great band. But I have known lots of deadheads and spent many hours listening to random live shows. A friend used to trade their tapes in the mail before the internet.
I find the live shows to be a bit dragged out for me. I love music and play music, but I generally hate live music, and I especially hate ‘jamming’, ie noodling on the same scale over 3 chords for 45 minutes 
I greatly prefer their studio albums. Oh and also I like touch of grey too… I’m sooooo sorry lol
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Oh great, now I have Rocky Mountain High ‘brain worm’ on loop…
Some Rammstein will fix that… 
Cheers
G
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Sorry deadheads, but you asked…
Never understood it. Dirty, stinky people flocked to parking lots out of their minds on lsd, spinning in circles to those unrocking tunes. The hippie era was pretty much gone by the 80’s when I started investigating this following and band. Soooo not for me
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I suspect most deadheads migrate to Burning Man.
Love the coverage I see on the web - but would never attend! The dust would kill me. lol
Frickin nutz…
Free bicycle with every seed order. (jk jk - lol)
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Are all those bikes still out there? That’s a gold mine!
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