Grateful Dead

Posted a long version of this against one of the other products. Why a CD/DVD set? Why not mix it quick, put the audio up for download in a month? Wouldn't they make more money and reach more people with the product that way? I'd pay maybe even $25 per show to download it if I had heard a good audience version and liked it enough. You'd almost have to pay ME to get me to hassle with and store yet more CDs and DVDs. Not to mention the wait. Who is going to watch a DVD without Jerry Garcia? Seriously. Can anyone explain it to me?

$700 box sets? Selling video/audio sets of concerts yet to be played? Something just feels weird with these latest developments.What if Weir collapses on stage (heaven forbid) on the second song? I mean no disrespect, none at all. This marketing is more inline with Gucci than Grateful.

I can't explain it. I think it must have something to do with nostalgia or whatever. I have zero interest in owning any of this fare thee well stuff. It's not the Grateful Dead so I don't need it or want it. I would go to a show if it didn't cost as much as a new car to attend but like you said who is going to watch a DVD without Jerry? Not me for sure.

If the fans want to buy this stuff and cherish it that's great. What I don't understand is what the motivation would be for the company? I don't think John Cutler is going to do 24 track mixdowns for free. The cost involved in these projects has to be very high. Why would they make it so complicated and expensive, and needlessly limit their audience? That's the part that is very confusing and would like to hear more about. High quality, download would be the way I'd do it in addition to the CDs. If people want to pay an arm and a leg for CDs I'd let them. But why limit the revenue. My guess is people who want CDs and boxes are going to pay for them regardless of whether there are downloads available. The argument that "we don't want to hurt the CD sales" by making downloads available is counter-intuitive to the whole thing. You can't hurt a small revenue stream by limiting a bigger one . . . just sayin'. The part about the fans' demands, why they would buy CDs and DVDs...particularly of something without Jerry . . . that one I gave up long ago in trying to understand. Probably after about my third Other One show in 1998. :) They used to talk about the Jerry Is God camp. I was in that camp. How could you not be?

I've been trying my best to give the guys the benefit of the doubt on this "tour", but taking orders for the DVD/CD of it before the show has even happened kinda seals it for me. Sad to have to admit it, but this is nothing but a money grab. Everyone has the right to make a living as they see fit, but for this band to come to this is still pretty sad. With that said, I'll probably order the DVD .....AFTER the concerts.

For those Deadheads who, for reasons of geography or cost, can't attend any of the farewell shows, these CD/DVD packages (especially the region free DVD's) are a bit of a godsend. Not cheap, especially when you factor in our present exchange rate with the US$ but it is what it is! Looking forward to getting it anyway. Hope all those who can get to the shows have a ball. Great pity the boys never made it down under but then, apart from Europe and the Egyptian trip, they didn't travel all that much outside the US. They had, and still have a lot of fans here.

First $700, yes I said $700 for a box set. And now $55 for a single show that has not even happened yet. Everything is really starting to seem business like. Great point on Gucci bobaloo. I guess no VW vans will be allowed in the parking lots. Just Range Rovers and Escalades from now on. In all seriousness it's becoming very EXclusive rather than inclusive. I still want many of these great products but I feel like I am simply being priced out.

will these be released before the shows so I know what songs they will play in Chicago?

Firstly, props to the entire GD organization for allowing a message board, and not deleting disparaging comments. Second. The prices are too high. They should have thought about this, but at this point, this ship has--not unlike the Grateful Dead--steered off on its own course. GD50 (I prefer that name b/c it's shorter) has officially blown up. It's also the last shows of anything near this size. Let's be real, rightly or wrongly, it's marketed as the first real GD shows in 20 years. And given the number of people who will show up within 1 mile of Soldier Field, it's closer than anything else to those amazing shows that ended 20 years ago. Third, I think people are worried this is it. Let's face it, Phil is still the biggest draw, and Phil is done with these kinds of shows. That fact is driving them to charge more. They did that here. Too bad because they needed to rebuild trust with fans after the last 3 months. I imagine these kinds of prices are out of the band's control, by now. That's because there really isn't a band anymore. They're just guys getting together to play a few shows. That probably makes it harder to assert against promoters who are naturally capitalists. Fourth. At least this is happening. I think they're doing it right as far as the band goes. Trey is perfect for this. Bruce too. I think it's going to be great. Hopefully, it is, and we can forget about the other stuff, like these darn prices.

Forward Marketing. This is it for the band. As we can see it is a highly produced affair. This is not our 70's Dead Show. Many hands in this. And the product will deliver. This is a legacy show and by the looks of them doing a 2 DVD set JUST for Sunday says that Sunday will be a long night...LONG!! Maybe everyone should reserve judgement until after the product is delivered.

only a fool would buy this. Seriously, it would be funny to see Bobby fall down or Ms. Lesh come out and tell phil he's playing badly or Mickey throw a drum stick at Billy, or perhaps an old Helly's angel come out and beat someone up. What next? How much money do these guys need? what a joke.

55 plus shipping handling whatnot slipknot! is better to me than traveling to Chicago in July (ouch), hoteling, standing in a large crowd, waiting, spending cash upon cash blah blah. This audio and DVD can be enjoyed in the privacy and comfort of my own home, over and over again, at my leisure. This is a way we ALL can enjoy THE LAST ONE 2.0. PLUS this isn't some limited edition bullsh!t. Excellent choice, ptb.

Hey there - THis is a Loooonnnngggg shot but here goes: Would anyone that is already going to the Santa Clara show on Sunday who has (2) GA lawn seats like to trade for section 127 row 11 seats 17 & 18 tickets? These are directly behind the stage. I am trying to get with my friends who are all down on the lawn. shoot me a message if you could be my Miracle! -B

I love Phil, but Bobby is a bigger individual draw. Bobby plays more shows and somewhat saturates the market, but the places I've seen them both play, Ratdog gets closer to capacity crowds than Phil and Friends. Together as Furthur they were both drawing more, and then all of the core 4 collectively are a huge draw. It's too bad more people don't dig Mickey's solo stuff, because those shows bring the weirdness. And drums these first two nights was phenomenal. You can feel it vibrating down to your bones.

I hear they're taking pre orders for Fare thee Well Again, the 60th anniversary shows. You can preorder the music, it will be downloaded to the chip in yer brain. Bring on 2025. Who will play lead guitar?

Is that this night will feature guests with a big jam at the end.

It would be nice if Donna Jean, TC and Robert Hunter (and perhaps Branford) came on the stage July 5

and the Neville Brothers for a killer drums.

I'll may buy one of this two in next weeks. Thanks. Support

AFTER I see tonight's set list.

Really, How many rock n roll bands have checked-off this box only to come back from the dead with 80 min of lost studio tracks. The beauty of this 5 show webcast is the flexibility it gives me in making decisions like these. That is something no other band would do. Hat's Off, Thank You n Cheers

thorough sound quality, great visuals, air-conditioned theater, plush seat with no one on either side. Magnificent. Thank you to all.

Can we please have the Santa Clara shows on CD/DVD?

The show was amazing. Waaaaaay better than I had a right to expect. However, $55 is rather pricey for a 3 CD set. OK, 4 CDs. Still pricey.

Something amazing and unusual happened on the very last day... Bobby had fun. He smiled, for the first time that entire weekend, acknowledged Phil, for the first time that weekend, and then even had a moment with Trey. It was amazing, and only lasted a song or two. don't worry, they will probably edit it out. great show, no matter how hard Bob tried to make them otherwiise

i only saw this one show (at the movies). i was pleased overall, but for the life of me i don't understand how the band could play 'unbroken chain' & 'the days between'. those songs suck no matter how much effort you give them. it would have been forgivable if the band was doing a 15 - 20 show tour, but when you only have 5 shows, why play that crap in the second set of the final performance? they completely killed the energy they previously accrued. also phil shouldn't have sung 'mountains of the moon'. i absolutely love the song, but he was awful. with that said, he did a much better job with 'terrapin station'. ----

Why are some people so angry!

but i'd say most people are pissed about the rampant commercialism. the grateful dead really showed their true colors on this 'tour'. if they were ever about the music, they certainly aren't anymore. say what you will, but this was a major cash grab, nothing more. it was not a farewell to the fans as advertised, and it certainly was not a rehashing of the glory days. those making the decisions for the grateful dead are all about the money. if you're part of the inner circle you must be pleased, because you just got paid. the rest of us just got the shaft. with that said, my previous post was simply a critique on their song choices. ----

Over those 3 days in Chicago, I would not have wanted to be anywhere else on the planet. What an outstanding time with friends from all corners. The perfect way to say hello again and then good-bye to a part of our life that was filled with so many fun and meaningful times. Can't wait to get a copy in November. Peace and thanks again. For everything. Be Kind.

I must say, considering all the naysayers (not to mention the occasional nastiness - curse Al Gore for inventing the interweb) regarding these shows, that Dead Heads are the most hard-to-please fans on the planet, if not the cosmos. If the promoters had managed to reincarnate Garcia and put him on stage too many Heads would complain that ticket prices were raised to cover the cost of the reincarnation. Then they would complain that Jerry was wearing the wrong color shirt. And why in the world did they not bring back Skinny Jerry??? Just strikes me as odd, given the joy the band has shared w/us for 50 years and the fact that Phil/Bob/Billy/Mickey did not have to do these shows for us in the first place.

Wow, there's an awful lot of bitterness here. If you don't feel like any of this was worth the money you have a choice...don't fuckin' buy it! These guys busted their ass for who knows how long to rehearse this material with new players, hauled all their gear to the midwest, set it up, took it down, played three nights, put staff up in hotels, fed them and paid them. When it was obvious they would way more than sell out the shows, they came up with ways for the rest of us to see it on pay-per-view or a theater or the CDs and DVDs they are offering here (which, by the way, are pretty cheap considering you get 6 discs for 60 bucks!) What more do you want from these guys?! Go back to your collection of the Monkees or the Eagles on vinyl and leave this space for the rest of us who had a good time for 50 years. Considering some of the shitty attitudes, my guess is the people getting ripped off are more likely whoever it is that employs YOU.

wow

For those folks who called these shows a blatant 'money grab', I can only assume you insist on working for free. That's awesome because my house really needs a paint job. I expect you to fly here on your dime, purchase the paint, and finish the job in a timely manner. You may not know me but, after all, you owe me a lot. Show the Dead how it's really supposed to be done, stand up for your principles and work for free.

The band can and should charge what they want and also sell what they want. Seems like the term/definition changed, or people just don't get it. From people in the lot, to people who printed/sold bootleg shirt/hats/stickers/insert commodity here, to people scalping tickets, to people flipping show merch, people selling chicago/santa clara travel packages, people trying to get what they could for hotel rooms, the list goes on, and this my friends is "The Money Grab". It is not the band making money. People are using the term who dont even know what it means, or how to use it. God bless the Grateful Dead!!

but these guys are fucking sellouts, and they probably always were. let me set your mind at ease. you don't have to worry about me buying any of this crap, because i won't. had i not been asked by a friend to go to the movies sunday i wouldn't even have paid them $14. if you think using 'reductio ad absurdum' to win an argument is viable then you're a fool. no one asks them to work for free, but watching the grateful dead scramble to get every dollar they can is sickening. if it was any other band or industry most of you would be crying foul, but when it comes to the grateful dead you turn a blind eye. what a fucking joke! ----

the stuff is free all over the web if you know where to look,all 5 shows in full sets and all five streams nj : )

If you truly believe the Dead are (and probably always were) sellouts, money grubbers, a fucking joke, etc... then what are you doing here? Seriously. There can really be only two reasons: 1) you are earnestly trying to open our eyes, enlighten us, that we are being ripped off, buying products that you feel we don't need, at unnecessarily high prices; 2) you are venting and trolling as a form of personal entertainment or satisfaction. I could be wrong but it seems very simple to me. When I see a product that I want, and I can afford, I consider buying it. If it's not something I want, or I can't afford it, I don't buy it. After all, there are thousands of free Dead shows at the Live Music Archive for downloading and/or streaming. There are endless hours of live Dead and JGB shows on YouTube to watch for free. That's my 2 cents. Feel free to hurl invectives, Latin philosophical terminology, or whatever else you need to feel self actualized. I have no doubt that you are infinitely smarter than I am.

At least for me, living in Europe, these cd/dvd/blu-rays are the closest thing to get involvelved with the Dead :-D And the price is not a problem. Been listening the GD since 1974 and I think I've some 450 shows downloaded from the archive, so both 'ways' of listening/enjoying is done, daily I would say :-P Peace and enjoy te Dead!

I want to share this from a music mag thread ie Rolling Stone, Billboard, don't remember which. Blessed are those who understand and are moved by music without judgement. Outside Observer I consider myself a very outside observer of this band. I think the whole thing is something every music fan should be envious to experience. Today’s music aficianodos were afforded a chance to glimpse what it is like for a real and tangible subculture to exist that spans many many decades. It speaks to how important music can be culturally and spiritually. This is also a fanbase that has faced mocking or ambivalence or have been flat out ignored, yet they show no ill will or agitation toward anyone. Especially in a culture that is so different from theirs, they appear to be an extremely gracious and tolerant bunch to put up with a world filled with assholes. It also makes me sad that music does not impact most people in this way, even the most die-hard of music fans in this century. I hope by observing this event from afar, it can impact the music scene to set the bar higher as to what music can mean to someone’s life. I really do not see it much or hardly anywhere with a couple of very few exceptions. As a non-fan or casual observer, I say, long live the Dead.

i'm here, because i do enjoy most of what the grateful dead has offered up over the years, so i check dead.net from time to time to survey the new inventory. today, i visited the website, because its about time for the 'dave's picks' volume 15 announcement, and i was curious to see if there was any news on the subject, but i guess the band is going to wait a bit since there's already a lot of other crap they'd like to unload on the public first. for the record, i can still appreciate a band and think they're a bunch of sellouts. many of my favorite bands are/were sellouts. with that said, the grateful dead really showed who they were this year. how can anyone look at all the ways they tried to cash in, and pretend it wasn't all about the money? they could have raffled off 5000 tickets to each show, but they didn't. they could have lowered the price to watch the shows on YouTube, but they didn't. they could have lowered the price of the CD/DVD box sets, but they didn't, and they didn't because the whole purpose of this endeavor was to make as much money as possible. no one should be expected to work for free, but there is a huge gray area between working for free, and trying to squeeze every dime out of your fans. IMO what makes this whole charade so terrible is the fact most grateful dead fans are so fucking loyal they don't think the band can do wrong, so they buy into all the bullshit the band spews. this 'farewell' tour was simply a major cash grab. just accept it. deep down you know i'm right. ----

Sorry to read about all the negativity that some people experienced as a result of this concert and its promotion. I have been wearing my Dead shirt everywhere and it has actually resulted in me meeting a lot of new people who were either at the show or wished they had been. To me this is what the Dead is all about: Creating an environment that you can go up to a perfect stranger and realize that they are in fact not a stranger at all. I hope this feeling lasts because I am still riding high. Better yet, I hope some of the naysayers see someone with a Dead shirt on, stop and say hello, and have a nice conversation about how significant and meaningful the Dead have been in their lives. I am not a deadhead, but I can't imagine the world without the Grateful Dead. It would just suck to hate happy people.

Wow, what's with all the vitriol towards the Dead? I guess these guys are not supposed to make money? I didn't go to any of these shows. My thing is I saw the Dead a lot in the 80's, I was too young to seem them in the seventies unfortunately, when Jerry was still around and I feel completely blessed I got to see him play live. I don't really know how this can be a farewell tour. How can it be without Jerry? But that being said it's just my opinion and I am one person and it's my experience alone and no one else's. But people bitching about the cost for stuff on dead.net? WTF? I can go to archive.org and listen to GD all day and all night so stop your bitching! I think these people that are complaining are the same people who never got the whole experience. Never understood it. Stood on the outside looking in and then bitched about it! I had friends like that growing up who would give me shit for going and seeing the band. Anyway, long live Jerry!

Why are so many people angey about the 50th because the four core members attempt to squeeze every penny they can from their fans. First the overpriced rsd release. 4 1/2 discs for 125 dollars. Next the 700 dollar box. now the ftw events a disguised further show and box that many fans have zero interest . this is not the band that most of us fell in love with over 20 years ago. This is a band that would cater to their fans over the past 50 years and thats why they have so many loyal fans. Concerts and recorded music releases have been more than we ever hoped for but to celebrate the 50 years of loyalty like this is wrong. No one is asking for anything for free bit the fans deserve better. If they are so worried about making money than make some new music without Jerry and see how that goes.

I'm still riding high from the shows too:) It was such a blessing to be there. And for all those who are complaining, name-calling and spreading negativity and cynicism here... you are probably doing in the same in other aspects of life too. Most of us live in developed, wealthy countries, living pretty wonderful, blessed lives. Let us all just be GRATEFUL and do what Mickey Hart suggested... to take all the positive feelings (from the show) and do something good in the world. If you didn't feel inspired by the shows, then move on, but there are many of us who received a good shower of love, inspiration and beauty from the shows. It was good for the soul. The Grateful Dead spent the better parts of their lives creating music and shows that inspired people, and around which a community of people was created where brothers and sisters could feel safe to be themselves and explore deeper questions through the dead's musical experiences. If you just didn't get that, then again... move on. For those of us who did... let us rejoice. We were blessed to have been positively impacted by the music. A heartfelt thanks to all Grateful Dead members past and present!!! Namaste'

too much focus on whether the music was played well and not enough focus of the inspiration the music brings.

it was the best they could do why shouldn't they make as much money as they can because they wear not making it in 70 or 80 the shows wear grate it was just nice to see them again first show 75 so if your lot person that wants ticket handed to them because you traveled with 2 dollars in pocket and mad a killing selling gas or what ever no one said shit about that so stop already move on

If the Dead were worried about making as much money as possible as a band like Kiss or who ever then it no longer is the dead. What about artistic integrity. If they wanted to do a 50 year celebration of the music they should have done a Last Waltz like thing with special guests they were part of what made the Dead over the years. They could of had different guests playing the lead guitar parts and other people who have contributed over the years . no disrect but what Trey have to do with the dead over their 30 years except being influanced by them. It is like it takes a village in that the four core members are forgetting the other people who contributed to the dead legacy. There are plenty of bands who learned from the Dead and don't try to squeeze the fans. Wilco just released their new album free for download and will being playing many small venues instead of stadiums or arenas. Artistic integrity is important.

Everybody stop crying about the "cash grab" already! Not like they are holding a gun to your head and making you buy FTW box sets. LOL. Might've been a cash grab, I dunno, but it looked like a fun one! Biggest, baddest, and best parties of 2015 went down in Santa Clara and Chicago this year, I believe - and a freaking incredible time must've been had by a great many. Amongst other things, concert-goers were treated to what I believe is the best-ever performance of Golden Road! Not a song I ever particularly enjoyed too much, but somehow Trey - the king of goofy lyric delivery - was the right one to transform this song into an epic 10+ minute journey. I never saw that coming! A lot of other highlights. Cool to see these 70+ year-olds rockin' on!

Spot on!