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!
Only one choice that I see, so that made fast work of it. And now...to kick back and float downstream.
Despite there seeming to be so few to choose from. Maybe my ear is off tonight.
Rough, late era stuff, but they still keep it together, and it’s still incredibly beautiful. Phil surprising us with McCartney-influenced bass. Such a gift, even at this point. Grateful.
Same for me playing those two TOOs a tad out of sync. Always fun to do that, but these two were especially trippy! Real smilers!
...I don't mind them so much. Mostly it's just curious to me, because with so much material in the vault, it seems like you'd never need to repeat. But grateful to hear whatever gems are offered.
And FYI, there was one repeat already this year. BTW from 2016 & 2021.