30 Days of Dead
It's a Dead Head's most wonderful time of the year! Welcome to another 30 days of unreleased Grateful Dead tracks from the vault, one for every day of the month, selected by archivist and producer David Lemieux. The tracks are yours, 100% free gua-ran-teed, but the real fun is taking part in the challenge for the chance to win some sweet swag from the Dead.
Those of you who know what to do, feel free to skip right on ahead. For those of you who need a refresher, here's the drill:
You know your Ables from your Bakers from your C's, but can your finely tuned ears differentiate the cosmic "comeback" tour from a spacey 70s show? Each day we'll post a song from one of the Dead's coveted shows. Will it be from that magical night at Madison Square Garden in '93 or from way back when they were just starting to warm it up at Winterland? Is that Pigpen's harmonica we hear? Brent on keys? If you think you know, lob your answer in and you just might find yourself taking home our daily prize of a 2025 Grateful Dead wall calendar or the grand prize – a copy of limited, numbered, FRIEND OF THE DEVILS: APRIL '78 boxed set!
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Haha right before bed, I decided to give it one last shot and searched alternative sources for any shows in Feb/Mar ‘70. I was convinced it was in there somewhere. Found the 2/28 show and thought, this sounds pretty close. Punched in the answer and went to bed without even listening to the whole thing! I should buy a lotto ticket today.
As I said last night, yesterday’s search was one of the most challenging ever. For me, I suspected all along that 2/28/70 was the answer. There was a similar versions in late ‘69, but TC’s keyboard crossed it off the list. And then there were the other versions missing from the web as well as the (really) bad audience tapes. I was able to eliminate many of them because they were set openers or closers or they repeated the chorus five times instead of four and added “you know.” I had listened to crowd from the Capitol Theatre shows in November 1970 and had eliminated them because they were just too ruckus. The crowd noise from 2/28 seemed to match. I searched off and on all day and was prepared to guess 2/28 anyway. But I did one last search for “Grateful Dead 2/28/70 Casey jones” and the link to the Tapers Section popped up with a handful of songs from that night ending with the Casey Jones. It was obviously the same source as it synced up perfectly. Dave likes to throw us a curve ball every now and then. I still remember the Crème Puff War from ‘66 and the RR Blues from ‘72 that were not on the web. Some years are easier than others, but the joy is always in the search.
My head has been circulating for the past few hours looking for this rare track.......without success. We're all winners today for this grate and special gift David has bestowed upon us. "Ha Ha" and "WooHoo" indeed!
Used the Tapers section twice now. He is a sly one. Will he do it again? Why not. Good luck to all.
Cheers
Yesterday's was my first miss this year, tough because Internet Archive/ Relisten doesn't list a Casey Jones on 2/28/70. They have this version as 2/27/70, and doing a deeped dive I see the Archive date is wrong. First time I've found that kind of error - guess I need to expand my search methods. But really love the 30 Days! Thanks Dave and team