Grateful Dead

The download price is $99.98 for all 111 songs. This is the only way it is being offered.

I got 15% off on this order? Not trying to gloat, just pointing out the upgrade in customer service. My 15% off code dropped into my lap because my DaP 4 shipped a few days too late -- I didn't even know it was late until I got the email with the code. At the time I was both pleased and a little disappointed in my timing -- I'd just purchased the 2013 DaP subscription and would have loved to get the extra off. But I decided to save it for the next big release, and yeehah! It worked! No way that this would have happened during the E72 debacle. Good job, guys!

If kickstarter can raise $3 million in a few days to fund a Veronica Mars movie, surely we can find enough deadheads to contribute a few bucks to raise $1 million to buy back the Cornell master.

I understand Dave not wanting to put up cash out of principal, BUT...............we (fans) would. I also believe Rhino should be ready as well. Its money. If money gets the vault completed for generations to come....I am personally on board. I dont quite frankly care if the holders of these grails are taking a ransom approach, I will negotiate. I have given years and tons of cash to this beautiful world, why would I stop now. Love to all. Bring our reels home boys.

When they say the downloads will only be for the full set, I assume they mean the entire box set. Seems like a bummer really - it would be nice if each individual show were up for a separate download (I'm getting the box set anyway, but it's just the principle, heh). Am I reading that wrong?

...not thrilling like Dave's Picks 6, but very nice. There will surely be some beautiful music on here, even if these shows don't represent what most people think of as the best of the tour, except maybe for the 17th. Anyway, if these really are going to be released as FLAC downloads, dead.net really ought to put that up for pre-order as well right now. There's no way the download price can reasonably be the same as the physical set but I suppose dead.net doesn't want to list that yet so as not to encourage people "just" to get the downloads. Regardless, please put up the downloads for pre-order. It's only fair. The reality is, I probably won't buy the physical set and may have lost interest by the time the downloads are available. If they come up soon, though, and for a sensible, I'll happily order. Ditto for Spring '90 actually, the blurb for which was carefully worded so (I assume) to allow for later downloads. I really want to buy this stuff but I'm gradually running out of space. I'm delighted that FLACs will be available. A really positive development. I think it would be fair if they're listed the same time as the physical set though!!! Please??

@44 Moose: Thanks for the link to the DL interview. I didn't realize that DL and crew apparently have some idea (indirectly) who has the reels "in their closet." Dave.... call Seal Team Six. @Wilfred: I admire your optimism! I agree, there is hope (in fact I firmly believe the early May reels will eventually find their way home - see my Seal Team Six idea above). I was really addressing the people who complain that Cornell isn't being released, as if Dave is just keeping it locked up out of some kind of spite. There was a comment from a guy under the Relix article, the guy says "I don't know why Dave says they don't have May 9 - that Betty Board has been around for years." Maybe I'm just getting crotchety, but dumbassery is wearing me down. @Mustin321: Thanks man, glad you like the stats. When I said I was sad that MAMU only appears once in this box set, I was being very, VERY sarcastic :-)

Last year the 5/8/77 show was selected for addition to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress. Shortly after this announcement, we interviewed Dead archivist David Lemeiux. In this portion of the conversation which has yet to appear online, Lemieux confirms that the band has never released 5/8/77 because a master copy does not exist in the Dead archives. He goes on discuss the matter while also affirming the vitality of the group’s May 1977 run as a whole. For more on archival Dead shows over the years, check out our recent relix 40 list. In terms of 5/8/77, do you know where the source tape resides? I do not know specifically but I have heard from many people that they know where it is and they know who has it and that’s fine. We’ve certainly made a note that we’d love to have it back as we would with any master Grateful Dead tape that we don’t have in the vault. But there’s really nothing we can do about it. We’re not going to pay for our own tape. That’s one thing I don’t think we’d ever do is to pay to buy them back and I don’t think they’ve been offered to the band in a long, long time. They know where we are, we’re easy to find and I think it has been made clear that we would love to have them back. Some people would just rather have the tapes in their closet than in the vault, but that’s fine. It is what it is. Again, there’s nothing we can do, we don’t lose sleep over it, but it is as it is. In terms of that collection of tapes, how many are there that the archive does not possess? It’s in the dozens, during the period from 1976-1978. I get a lot of emails from people suggesting shows for release and it kills me because I agree with what these people are suggesting, but we just don’t have the tapes. So for example, a lot of people will ask for the July 1978 Red Rocks shows [7/7 and 7/8] and I agree. I think there are great concerts, great sounding shows, we just don’t have them. We have the August 78 Red Rocks [8/30 and 8/31], but not the July shows. Other examples: April 6th through April 16th a ten day run of about 8 shows in April of 1978, a phenomenal run of shows and we don’t have any of them and they do exist. Those tapes are part of this batch that we’re talking about. Another example would be January of 1978, also we don’t have any of those. We don’t have Eugene. We get asked for the MacArthur Court show, January 22nd in 78 [from Eugene, OR], we don’t have that. We don’t have the Pacific Northwest Tour, the fall of 1977, which is a couple of shows in Portland and a couple of shows in Seattle, very good shows, we don’t have those. We don’t Binghamton November 6th of 1977, great show, phenomenal, again, another one of these shows that we get requested a lot and then of course, May 5th, 7th, 8th, and 9th of 1977, we don’t have. Great shows that obviously include the May 8th 77 Cornell show. June of 1976 is a terrific tour, we are missing most of it. We’ve got a couple of shows. We just released one from Boston on June 9th of 76, but the Beacon shows, the middle nights in Boston, the second and third shows, we don’t have any of that. There are gaps but you know, such is life. Luckily we do have a lot of stuff, plenty of stuff to work with and the hope is there that some day we will get them back, but if it doesn’t happen that’s okay too.

Cant wait for May77 box to hit my speakers. On another note, I know nothing about where the master for Cornell 77 is, but if that cat wants a million, I say deadheads and the vault start a Go Fund Me project and raise it. They could easily set it up where you could get the release if you pledged a certain amount, and the vault could start the thing off by dropping in that 100k. I would imagine some wealthy heads and maybe even band members would push this thing up near a nice #. Peace

Looks like downloads will be $99.98 http://ultimateclassicrock.com/grateful-dead-may-1977-box-set/