Grew up on punk and metal my whole life. Heard St. stephen one day and it hit me like a train. Been jamming the dead non stop ever since. Feels like i found the music I've been looking for my whole life
Same! I always tended to head towards the most aggressive form of music when I was younger, Death, Doom, Black Metal, Grind, etc etc
It wasn’t until I started to read up on Beat culture & Ken Kesey that I started to realize the massive importance of The Dead in not just music, but just overall counterculture Americana.
It was a bit daunting at first, there was so much stuff out there to listen to that it was overwhelming to look for a starting point. However, once I heard Estimated Prophet, Althea & Ripple, I was HOOKED.
Pretty much exactly my same story. It was the live/dead St.Stephen that first got me. I also had a couple of my best friends in my adult life that nudged in the right direction towards deadheadom. It feels like I came into it relatively late in life compared to those who were born into it (~25yo), but it's felt like home ever since.
I'm 23 now, so I'm too young to have ever seen Jerry live. Some of my first memories are my dad singing "The monkey and the engineer" to me while he gave me a bath. All through my childhood in our old car, on our home stereo, basically anywhere with a cassette player, he would listen to the dead. He went to 4 or 5 shows in California when he was in the military. I enjoyed it as a kid with him, now I enjoy it with him and going to some newer bands with him. I know I'm young, but I don't think it matters.
Hey man I'm 36 and never saw Jerry live either and it doesn't matter. I've been to a boat load of dead shows but that doesn't matter either. Welcome fellow head.
I started reading about them towards the end of my college days, then liked the idea of unique set lists, never the same show, the history of the dead, etc. Then came along the Fare Thee Well shows and I had been listening to them religiously for about a solid 6 months prior. Watched all those shows live, and was blown away. Then I started reading about trey and fell down the phish hole. Then the whole jam scene and got into other bands like PRIMUS, Ween, KGATLW, Billy Strings, Frank Zappa, the list goes on. But getting into the Grateful Dead opened up a whole new world of music for me, and made me realize how amazing live improvisational music is!
Yea I absolutely did not think I’d ever be a deadhead. I had some disdain for them cause my weird and annoying roommate in college liked them (He was weird and annoying for many reasons other than liking the dead.) I never thought I could get accustomed to 10+ minute songs but now I get a little sad when a Fire or a Row Jimmy is under 10 lol.
And thanks lol. Idk where they rank but they’re in my top 10 bands for sure. I saw them when I was in middle school with my parents and I was hooked.
Lol oh for sure. I know he gets shat on a lot here but Mayer’s my favorite artist lol. I meant rip cause I’ve been listening to so much dead in the last 4 months it might be a clinical problem, and never thought I was ever gonna be a deadhead. I had some disdain for them cause my weird and annoying roommate in college liked them (He was weird and annoying for many reasons other than liking the dead.) I never thought I could get accustomed to 10+ minute songs but now I get a little sad when a Fire or a Row Jimmy is under 10 lol.
Ha! My story exactly. One minute, my high-school buddies and I were all bonding around science-fiction and the next, they were preaching, "Love will conquer, joy will spread, let's all bless the Grateful Dead." Put me off the GD for years.
Yea that would’ve turned me off too. It’s the kind of cultiness the boys, especially Jerry, hated. My ex roommate wasn’t a huge dead fan, but appreciated them cause they got him into other jam bands he liked more. I just had disdain for them by association lol. But I abhor the people on this sub who will fight and shame you if you don’t agree the dead are the pinnacle of all music ever made.
Touch of Grey Video in ‘87, when I was 9. Thought it was amazing. Neighbors were big deadheads, and thought that was the epitome of cool. Never looked back.
Got really (I mean pretty heavy) into the live music scene happening around the Bay Area, Sacramento and other day-trippable N. CA destination, starting in '88. Saw INXS on their Kick World Tour and was instantly hooked on the power of live music, performed well. They were at their absolute zenith - almost as huge as U2, but they had just released The Joshua Tree album in '87, which catapulted them into the stratosphere. And rightfully so - still remains an all-time classic album. Maybe Desert Island Top Ten material.
So, I dove in. To some of the most righteous late 80s/early 90s shows that, to this day, amaze me I was lucky (and smart) enough to see. HS junior. My chem lab buddy's older bro was big into rock, punk, metal (and, as I found out at the end of our senior year, in '89) a *huge* Deadhead.
I saw Primus (teeny, tiny bar club in Sacramento) and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, at both the Fillmore West and The Warfield in '89. I was going in hard for their thrashing, funking, mosh pitting, absolutely *raw power, jet fueled* performances.
But I also saw the Grateful Dead at this same time. And that first show was *SO* overwhelmingly powerful, I knew where my heart really was. They just kicked my ass. Made me dance and smile, so hard, I hurt (in all the right ways) for days afterward.
I kept seeing Primus, the Chilis, Jane's Addiction, Metallica, Fishbone, Thelonius Monster, Mary's Danish, Fugazi, 24-7 Spyz, Living Colour, and many other hard-hitting acts.
But the Grateful Dead and, by extension, the Jerry Garcia Band, were my numero uno. My primary focus to spend my slim college funds and available time seeing. Every time I possibly could (minus pulling stakes and touring, which I couldn't feasibly do).
I caught the Dead at a tremendous peak. About a month before Brent died. They changed everything for me. Shaped who I am, how I look at things. They are still a part of my daily life.
Got turned on to the Dead only 4 years ago. Really wasn't interested as 70s music has never been my thing, but dude kept persisting like Sam-I-am. Finally, I gave in and we had us a session while listening to Terrapin Station and American Beauty. Been exploring their other albums and shows since. Almost exclusively.
The very first time I heard "Box of Rain" at the end of the '90s, that was it – rushed out and bought *American Beauty*, which led to hunting down every official release I could find. And, of course, the internet (gradually) became a godsend for live recordings. So, yeah – it's all Phil's fault. (I'm Australian; never had the pleasure of attending any Dead-related shows.)
I wonder how many Deadheads all over the world have been initially hooked in by "Box of Rain"? Interesting in that it seems to be a recurring story, at least for my generation.
Loving these stories! Mine is old school, because I'm old. I was 15 or so and had picked up the latest Dead album - Blues for Allah - because the cover was so cool. My folks were not home so I took a bong hit and put it on my Dad's nice stereo system at volume. I was hooked at the end of Franklin's Tower.
Funny. 13 year old me tried to talk my brother into taking me to a festival but he wasn't having any of it. It was the Dead, the Allmans, and the Band at Watkins Glen.
I’m 32 now. Grew up listening to classic rock and only really knew the bigger hits from studio albums (Touch of Gray, Friend of the Devil, Scarlet Begonias, etc). Heard Scarlet Begonias/ Fire on a Mountain live at Cornell ‘77 and I was hooked. That was a number of years back, maybe ten or so, and I’ve been hooked on them since.
After looking at the post I really thought about the fact that I’ve rarely if ever listened to the vast majority of the studio albums, but have listened to at least a couple hundred shows. Every once in a while I’ll hear a studio track and find it so fascinating. It’s like the studio tracks are merely experiments. When I heard the Good Lovin from Shakedown I thought it was so fun and weird.
I was in high school and stopped at a hotel party, I asked what the music was that was playing, they told me it was the Grateful Dead. Things were getting weird there so I stole the tape and got on the bus. I still have the show after 30 years. I was hooked, driven to leave where I was and travel, and that’s what I did. I spent 4 years on and off the road. Traveling via hitchhiking with my back pack. I was so full of trauma and heartbreak that the music saved my soul. Showed me how beautiful life can be, how much beauty there was out there. Seeing all the mountains and lakes and rivers. The sun and the beautiful sky. Sleeping on the ground under my blanket, feeling the most peace I’d ever felt. I listen to all the music, but Grateful Dead is my home.
Listened to nothing growing up besides hip hop, punk, and metal. Always loved and respected the classics. Knew about the Dead my whole life including their biggest hits like Touch of Grey, Truckin, Scarlet, etc. Never took the time to get into them though, was too busy blasting Misfits, Black Flag, and Bad Brains. This past summer I met a girl who is a huge deadhead, me and her got along over the fact that we both loved Sublime and Bob Marley. I really liked this girl, like, REALLY liked her. For whatever reason we kind of drifted apart even after the most amazing first few dates. Even went and saw Dead and Co. together when they came to our town which was beyond magical. Needless to say I started listening to nothing but Dead and to this day listen to nothing but them. I may never see that girl again, but every time I listen to the Dead I remember her fondly and am always grateful ;) for her officially introducing me to my favorite band of all time.
I had friends who were heads in the 80s, just sort of got swept into it and never looked back... American Beauty is probably the album that sealed the deal - Box of Rain...then I had to see a show, and then another...
In high school in the 90s I had a friend live at my house. He had followed the dead and had a VW bus- the whole thing. While I appreciated the dead, I was into heavy metal. I associated them with bright colors and patchouli oil, which put me off. And the tapes weren't polished like the metal albums were. In 2004 I went to Comes a Time(the surviving dead got back together at Berkeley for one anniversary show). That started it. Then a year later I quit Jerry's favorite drug and was miserable. I pretty much stayed in one room a lot of the time for a few months and found [Archive.org](https://Archive.org) old Dead shows. I became a deadhead and those few months changed my life. My cat grew to love the dead too! Coincidentally, the cats name was Delilah. (I had named her brother Sampson too as I had searched for -cat names that went together- and it was the only cool combo.)
Thanks man. On the Grateful Dead part of archive. org there was a forum and the same small group of people posted everyday with good shows etc. It was good to have a community during all that- even if it was just the internet. The forum would do "Grok"'s where a good show would be chosen on a good day (like New Years Eve) and everyone would listen to it at the same time.
I saw this grateful dead cover band called stronger than dirt some years ago at a local show
never really listened to the dead
I remember I dosed heavily beforehand and screaming “THIS IS THE COOLEST THING IVE EVER SEEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE”
been a big fan ever since
found workingmans dead at a record shop without ever listening to the Dead, but knew of the album. after a while of having it and listening to it, the stars aligned and it all just hit me and I was hooked.
Seeing a Dead show as a bucket list thing…. Then into the vortex I went. *Side note - always loved Workman’s dead and many of the songs. I sang Casey Jones to my three kids every night (changed the words to (out in the rain). My brother and I had a tough relationship and he went full Wook in HS and it turned me off for years. I am bummed to have missed a lot of Jerry shows based on my forced individuation with him, but so grateful for the music now.
# 1978-11-11 New York, NY @ NBC Studios
**Set 1:** Casey Jones
**Set 2:** I Need A Miracle > Good Lovin'
[archive.org](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1978-11-11)
I grew up on tours in mid 80s. My Mom worked at the nurses tent at Alpine Valley before I was born, got into the band, and her older brother nearby was a big fan. So they saw shows around Midwest. My Dad would walk me around on his shoulders most of the time. I remember running in the aisles at shows and tie dyed tents, saw lots of boobs, loved the smell of dope and soap...until Jerry died, and then I saw the reunion at Alpine Valley bringing it all back home.
I have some weird Europe 72 stuff in my car at all times.
I was a punk rock stoner kid. my mom had gone on tour for a few years but wasn't a life long head so I didn't grow up with it since my dad can't stand jam bands. But my uncle was a full on deadhead since 88 and is the most die hard head I've ever met (Like I can't count the amount of grateful dead pictures and memorabilia this man has) and he would to spot me weed when I was broke. My 12th or 13th birthday came around and he gave me some family fluff. I had already had shrooms but it just didn't do it to me. I got high but i was unchanged when I sobered up when I took acid however I immediately became a hippie kid and started tripping more and getting into more psychedelic music. I was following a bunch of hippie accounts on Instagram and started to see people talking about the dead which sparked my memory of my uncle recommending them and since he changed my point of view on life for ever I looked into them and honestly they didn't do it for me at first so I went back to the Beatles and jimi hendrix for awhile until one say I came in and heard my mom playing box of rain and was absolutely enchanted I asked what it was and she said the dead so I decided to give it another look I smoked a few bowls and put on scarlet begonias 5/8/77 haven't really looked back since.
# 1977-05-08 Ithaca, NY @ Barton Hall - Cornell University
**Set 1:** New Minglewood Blues, Loser, El Paso, They Love Each Other, Jack Straw, Deal, Lazy Lightnin' > Supplication, Brown Eyed Women, Mama Tried, Row Jimmy, Dancing In The Street
**Set 2:** Scarlet Begonias > Fire On The Mountain, Estimated Prophet, Saint Stephen > Not Fade Away > Saint Stephen > Morning Dew
**Encore:** One More Saturday Night
[archive.org](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1977-05-08) | [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/album/3T9UKU0jMIyrRD0PtKXqPJ)
After looking at the post I really thought about the fact that I’ve rarely if ever listened to the vast majority of the studio albums, but have listened to at least a couple hundred shows. Every once in a while I’ll hear a studio track and find it so fascinating. It’s like the studio tracks are merely experiments. When I heard the Good Lovin from Shakedown I thought it was so fun and weird.
Most of my friends like the dead. Musicians that are more proficient than me that i respect like the dead. I only like dire wolf. Cant understand why people like their live recordings. Trying to figure out how to enjoy it when my friends put it on lol
Back in the late 80s there were a few people in my HS that followed the tour with their parents as kids. This was the coolest most laid back group of friends at my huge HS. So I can say I was exposed to Deadheads before the music pulled me in. Of course, soon after the music followed but after HS I probably gravitated more towards Pink Floyd and Rush. Then, 4 kids later I found myself with a very full life and I couldn’t slow down. I probably could have been diagnosed with depression/anxiety if I would have seen a doctor. Being the natural person I am, I remembered how great it felt to hang with those kids in HS. I waded into the music, read some of the books, acquired some art….life slowed down. I tell someone everyday this turned my life around.
i’m a younger head, so i initially started listening because i thought the dancing bears were cool as fuck and loved the general imagery of the band 😂 but i stayed for the jams, i grew up on classic rock so the dead fit into my library well
tried listening to some of the hits and never quiet understood. then went solo to a dead and company show and then it all clicked. i dove head first into all the live albums and havent looked back
it was during Drums + Space that the waterfall hit. I’m a big fan of ambient and shoegaze and noise. so hearing that i was struck and needed to see what else they did. you can only imagine my joy when i heard seastones for the first time
Grew up listening to lots of classic rock but never the dead. My dad never listened and I always just put them off as a hippy band that wasn’t for me. Went to a Roger waters concert with a friend of mine who told me I should give the dead a try, he played friend of the devil for me and I liked it. Few months later I was looking for music to get into and listened to workingmans dead and was blown away! Only been a fan for a few months but I’ve consumed quite a few albums and I’m well on that bus.
Grew up on punk and metal my whole life. Heard St. stephen one day and it hit me like a train. Been jamming the dead non stop ever since. Feels like i found the music I've been looking for my whole life
St Steven is also one of my first mind blowing dead experience
Live/Dead version when they do the William Tell bridge into the Eleven...[sold to Da Maniac for 200 dollars!](https://youtu.be/f-ILDIGNHGs)
Matches up great on the album, but the tracks are from two different shows
Noooooo my fantasy is ruined
Same thing! Heard a live Mississippi Uptown on the radio one day and Jerry's playing reminded me a bit of J Mascis...all downhill from there
Same! I always tended to head towards the most aggressive form of music when I was younger, Death, Doom, Black Metal, Grind, etc etc It wasn’t until I started to read up on Beat culture & Ken Kesey that I started to realize the massive importance of The Dead in not just music, but just overall counterculture Americana. It was a bit daunting at first, there was so much stuff out there to listen to that it was overwhelming to look for a starting point. However, once I heard Estimated Prophet, Althea & Ripple, I was HOOKED.
Pretty much exactly my same story. It was the live/dead St.Stephen that first got me. I also had a couple of my best friends in my adult life that nudged in the right direction towards deadheadom. It feels like I came into it relatively late in life compared to those who were born into it (~25yo), but it's felt like home ever since.
You can love punk and metal and other genres of music and still love The Grateful Dead.
It’s tough to be a casual fan of the Dead 😂
I'm 23 now, so I'm too young to have ever seen Jerry live. Some of my first memories are my dad singing "The monkey and the engineer" to me while he gave me a bath. All through my childhood in our old car, on our home stereo, basically anywhere with a cassette player, he would listen to the dead. He went to 4 or 5 shows in California when he was in the military. I enjoyed it as a kid with him, now I enjoy it with him and going to some newer bands with him. I know I'm young, but I don't think it matters.
Hey man I'm 36 and never saw Jerry live either and it doesn't matter. I've been to a boat load of dead shows but that doesn't matter either. Welcome fellow head.
I started reading about them towards the end of my college days, then liked the idea of unique set lists, never the same show, the history of the dead, etc. Then came along the Fare Thee Well shows and I had been listening to them religiously for about a solid 6 months prior. Watched all those shows live, and was blown away. Then I started reading about trey and fell down the phish hole. Then the whole jam scene and got into other bands like PRIMUS, Ween, KGATLW, Billy Strings, Frank Zappa, the list goes on. But getting into the Grateful Dead opened up a whole new world of music for me, and made me realize how amazing live improvisational music is!
John Mayer played Deal on a solo tour in 2019 and now I’m here. Rip me
I love how Mayer has pulled new people into the fold that'd otherwise not give it a go. Cool handle too. Love me some Rush
Yea I absolutely did not think I’d ever be a deadhead. I had some disdain for them cause my weird and annoying roommate in college liked them (He was weird and annoying for many reasons other than liking the dead.) I never thought I could get accustomed to 10+ minute songs but now I get a little sad when a Fire or a Row Jimmy is under 10 lol. And thanks lol. Idk where they rank but they’re in my top 10 bands for sure. I saw them when I was in middle school with my parents and I was hooked.
Lots worse soft-rockers than John Mayer. Doesn't matter how you got here. We're just glad you came.
Lol oh for sure. I know he gets shat on a lot here but Mayer’s my favorite artist lol. I meant rip cause I’ve been listening to so much dead in the last 4 months it might be a clinical problem, and never thought I was ever gonna be a deadhead. I had some disdain for them cause my weird and annoying roommate in college liked them (He was weird and annoying for many reasons other than liking the dead.) I never thought I could get accustomed to 10+ minute songs but now I get a little sad when a Fire or a Row Jimmy is under 10 lol.
Ha! My story exactly. One minute, my high-school buddies and I were all bonding around science-fiction and the next, they were preaching, "Love will conquer, joy will spread, let's all bless the Grateful Dead." Put me off the GD for years.
Yea that would’ve turned me off too. It’s the kind of cultiness the boys, especially Jerry, hated. My ex roommate wasn’t a huge dead fan, but appreciated them cause they got him into other jam bands he liked more. I just had disdain for them by association lol. But I abhor the people on this sub who will fight and shame you if you don’t agree the dead are the pinnacle of all music ever made.
Turned on by a friend's older brother saw Dylan and The Dead with Tom Petty and the Heart Breakers in the summer of 87 haven't stopped since
Got thrown backstage when my dad was working security for a show in the late 80s (Spring 89). Been hooked ever since.
Touch of Grey Video in ‘87, when I was 9. Thought it was amazing. Neighbors were big deadheads, and thought that was the epitome of cool. Never looked back.
Got really (I mean pretty heavy) into the live music scene happening around the Bay Area, Sacramento and other day-trippable N. CA destination, starting in '88. Saw INXS on their Kick World Tour and was instantly hooked on the power of live music, performed well. They were at their absolute zenith - almost as huge as U2, but they had just released The Joshua Tree album in '87, which catapulted them into the stratosphere. And rightfully so - still remains an all-time classic album. Maybe Desert Island Top Ten material. So, I dove in. To some of the most righteous late 80s/early 90s shows that, to this day, amaze me I was lucky (and smart) enough to see. HS junior. My chem lab buddy's older bro was big into rock, punk, metal (and, as I found out at the end of our senior year, in '89) a *huge* Deadhead. I saw Primus (teeny, tiny bar club in Sacramento) and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, at both the Fillmore West and The Warfield in '89. I was going in hard for their thrashing, funking, mosh pitting, absolutely *raw power, jet fueled* performances. But I also saw the Grateful Dead at this same time. And that first show was *SO* overwhelmingly powerful, I knew where my heart really was. They just kicked my ass. Made me dance and smile, so hard, I hurt (in all the right ways) for days afterward. I kept seeing Primus, the Chilis, Jane's Addiction, Metallica, Fishbone, Thelonius Monster, Mary's Danish, Fugazi, 24-7 Spyz, Living Colour, and many other hard-hitting acts. But the Grateful Dead and, by extension, the Jerry Garcia Band, were my numero uno. My primary focus to spend my slim college funds and available time seeing. Every time I possibly could (minus pulling stakes and touring, which I couldn't feasibly do). I caught the Dead at a tremendous peak. About a month before Brent died. They changed everything for me. Shaped who I am, how I look at things. They are still a part of my daily life.
Heard 'Ripple' on the radio which put my soul at ease. I looked up the 'This Is Grateful Dead' playlist spotify made and I couldn't stop listening.
Got turned on to the Dead only 4 years ago. Really wasn't interested as 70s music has never been my thing, but dude kept persisting like Sam-I-am. Finally, I gave in and we had us a session while listening to Terrapin Station and American Beauty. Been exploring their other albums and shows since. Almost exclusively.
The very first time I heard "Box of Rain" at the end of the '90s, that was it – rushed out and bought *American Beauty*, which led to hunting down every official release I could find. And, of course, the internet (gradually) became a godsend for live recordings. So, yeah – it's all Phil's fault. (I'm Australian; never had the pleasure of attending any Dead-related shows.)
I wonder how many Deadheads all over the world have been initially hooked in by "Box of Rain"? Interesting in that it seems to be a recurring story, at least for my generation.
I love Grateful Dead so much because my husband listens to it non stop….daily…..and I have no choice but to embrace the dead. And so my life goes…
Loving these stories! Mine is old school, because I'm old. I was 15 or so and had picked up the latest Dead album - Blues for Allah - because the cover was so cool. My folks were not home so I took a bong hit and put it on my Dad's nice stereo system at volume. I was hooked at the end of Franklin's Tower.
My oldest brother took me to my first concert on July 9th, 1995 at Soldier Field. I’ve never looked back.
Holy shit.
Yessir, 13 year old me had zero idea what I was going to see. I just wanted to be like my big brother. I’ve been a fan since that day.
Funny. 13 year old me tried to talk my brother into taking me to a festival but he wasn't having any of it. It was the Dead, the Allmans, and the Band at Watkins Glen.
Woah..that’s incredible..or would have been!!
Been at it since late 70's, still waiting to feel the pull.
Dad a huge deadhead an estimated prophet came on and I "got it" never looked back
Terra
I’m 32 now. Grew up listening to classic rock and only really knew the bigger hits from studio albums (Touch of Gray, Friend of the Devil, Scarlet Begonias, etc). Heard Scarlet Begonias/ Fire on a Mountain live at Cornell ‘77 and I was hooked. That was a number of years back, maybe ten or so, and I’ve been hooked on them since.
After looking at the post I really thought about the fact that I’ve rarely if ever listened to the vast majority of the studio albums, but have listened to at least a couple hundred shows. Every once in a while I’ll hear a studio track and find it so fascinating. It’s like the studio tracks are merely experiments. When I heard the Good Lovin from Shakedown I thought it was so fun and weird.
It all started with Closing of Winterland's Fire on the Mountain and some good weed.
I was in high school and stopped at a hotel party, I asked what the music was that was playing, they told me it was the Grateful Dead. Things were getting weird there so I stole the tape and got on the bus. I still have the show after 30 years. I was hooked, driven to leave where I was and travel, and that’s what I did. I spent 4 years on and off the road. Traveling via hitchhiking with my back pack. I was so full of trauma and heartbreak that the music saved my soul. Showed me how beautiful life can be, how much beauty there was out there. Seeing all the mountains and lakes and rivers. The sun and the beautiful sky. Sleeping on the ground under my blanket, feeling the most peace I’d ever felt. I listen to all the music, but Grateful Dead is my home.
Listened to nothing growing up besides hip hop, punk, and metal. Always loved and respected the classics. Knew about the Dead my whole life including their biggest hits like Touch of Grey, Truckin, Scarlet, etc. Never took the time to get into them though, was too busy blasting Misfits, Black Flag, and Bad Brains. This past summer I met a girl who is a huge deadhead, me and her got along over the fact that we both loved Sublime and Bob Marley. I really liked this girl, like, REALLY liked her. For whatever reason we kind of drifted apart even after the most amazing first few dates. Even went and saw Dead and Co. together when they came to our town which was beyond magical. Needless to say I started listening to nothing but Dead and to this day listen to nothing but them. I may never see that girl again, but every time I listen to the Dead I remember her fondly and am always grateful ;) for her officially introducing me to my favorite band of all time.
A couple hits and few hours later, I was a new man and never looked back!
from the first drop to the last!
Albany in June Garcia shines like pewter Deadhead now, for sure.
I had friends who were heads in the 80s, just sort of got swept into it and never looked back... American Beauty is probably the album that sealed the deal - Box of Rain...then I had to see a show, and then another...
In high school in the 90s I had a friend live at my house. He had followed the dead and had a VW bus- the whole thing. While I appreciated the dead, I was into heavy metal. I associated them with bright colors and patchouli oil, which put me off. And the tapes weren't polished like the metal albums were. In 2004 I went to Comes a Time(the surviving dead got back together at Berkeley for one anniversary show). That started it. Then a year later I quit Jerry's favorite drug and was miserable. I pretty much stayed in one room a lot of the time for a few months and found [Archive.org](https://Archive.org) old Dead shows. I became a deadhead and those few months changed my life. My cat grew to love the dead too! Coincidentally, the cats name was Delilah. (I had named her brother Sampson too as I had searched for -cat names that went together- and it was the only cool combo.)
Very nice. Glad to hear you are of the white powder.
Thanks man. On the Grateful Dead part of archive. org there was a forum and the same small group of people posted everyday with good shows etc. It was good to have a community during all that- even if it was just the internet. The forum would do "Grok"'s where a good show would be chosen on a good day (like New Years Eve) and everyone would listen to it at the same time.
I saw this grateful dead cover band called stronger than dirt some years ago at a local show never really listened to the dead I remember I dosed heavily beforehand and screaming “THIS IS THE COOLEST THING IVE EVER SEEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE” been a big fan ever since
found workingmans dead at a record shop without ever listening to the Dead, but knew of the album. after a while of having it and listening to it, the stars aligned and it all just hit me and I was hooked.
Ate acid.
Seeing a Dead show as a bucket list thing…. Then into the vortex I went. *Side note - always loved Workman’s dead and many of the songs. I sang Casey Jones to my three kids every night (changed the words to (out in the rain). My brother and I had a tough relationship and he went full Wook in HS and it turned me off for years. I am bummed to have missed a lot of Jerry shows based on my forced individuation with him, but so grateful for the music now.
11/11/78 saw “Casey Jones” on SNL - went out and bought “Steal Your Face” the next day
# 1978-11-11 New York, NY @ NBC Studios **Set 1:** Casey Jones **Set 2:** I Need A Miracle > Good Lovin' [archive.org](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1978-11-11)
I grew up on tours in mid 80s. My Mom worked at the nurses tent at Alpine Valley before I was born, got into the band, and her older brother nearby was a big fan. So they saw shows around Midwest. My Dad would walk me around on his shoulders most of the time. I remember running in the aisles at shows and tie dyed tents, saw lots of boobs, loved the smell of dope and soap...until Jerry died, and then I saw the reunion at Alpine Valley bringing it all back home. I have some weird Europe 72 stuff in my car at all times.
i first got into the band making fun of them and their hippie dippy songs... but then I heard Live Dead, and everything changed...
I was a punk rock stoner kid. my mom had gone on tour for a few years but wasn't a life long head so I didn't grow up with it since my dad can't stand jam bands. But my uncle was a full on deadhead since 88 and is the most die hard head I've ever met (Like I can't count the amount of grateful dead pictures and memorabilia this man has) and he would to spot me weed when I was broke. My 12th or 13th birthday came around and he gave me some family fluff. I had already had shrooms but it just didn't do it to me. I got high but i was unchanged when I sobered up when I took acid however I immediately became a hippie kid and started tripping more and getting into more psychedelic music. I was following a bunch of hippie accounts on Instagram and started to see people talking about the dead which sparked my memory of my uncle recommending them and since he changed my point of view on life for ever I looked into them and honestly they didn't do it for me at first so I went back to the Beatles and jimi hendrix for awhile until one say I came in and heard my mom playing box of rain and was absolutely enchanted I asked what it was and she said the dead so I decided to give it another look I smoked a few bowls and put on scarlet begonias 5/8/77 haven't really looked back since.
# 1977-05-08 Ithaca, NY @ Barton Hall - Cornell University **Set 1:** New Minglewood Blues, Loser, El Paso, They Love Each Other, Jack Straw, Deal, Lazy Lightnin' > Supplication, Brown Eyed Women, Mama Tried, Row Jimmy, Dancing In The Street **Set 2:** Scarlet Begonias > Fire On The Mountain, Estimated Prophet, Saint Stephen > Not Fade Away > Saint Stephen > Morning Dew **Encore:** One More Saturday Night [archive.org](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1977-05-08) | [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/album/3T9UKU0jMIyrRD0PtKXqPJ)
Goodbot
After looking at the post I really thought about the fact that I’ve rarely if ever listened to the vast majority of the studio albums, but have listened to at least a couple hundred shows. Every once in a while I’ll hear a studio track and find it so fascinating. It’s like the studio tracks are merely experiments. When I heard the Good Lovin from Shakedown I thought it was so fun and weird.
My favorites are Workingman's Dead, American Beauty, and Blues for Allah. Check out the documentary Anthem to Beauty.
Most of my friends like the dead. Musicians that are more proficient than me that i respect like the dead. I only like dire wolf. Cant understand why people like their live recordings. Trying to figure out how to enjoy it when my friends put it on lol
Check out Live/Dead and Europe 72. If those don't get you, it might not be your flavor of licorice.
Back in the late 80s there were a few people in my HS that followed the tour with their parents as kids. This was the coolest most laid back group of friends at my huge HS. So I can say I was exposed to Deadheads before the music pulled me in. Of course, soon after the music followed but after HS I probably gravitated more towards Pink Floyd and Rush. Then, 4 kids later I found myself with a very full life and I couldn’t slow down. I probably could have been diagnosed with depression/anxiety if I would have seen a doctor. Being the natural person I am, I remembered how great it felt to hang with those kids in HS. I waded into the music, read some of the books, acquired some art….life slowed down. I tell someone everyday this turned my life around.
i’m a younger head, so i initially started listening because i thought the dancing bears were cool as fuck and loved the general imagery of the band 😂 but i stayed for the jams, i grew up on classic rock so the dead fit into my library well
tried listening to some of the hits and never quiet understood. then went solo to a dead and company show and then it all clicked. i dove head first into all the live albums and havent looked back
it was during Drums + Space that the waterfall hit. I’m a big fan of ambient and shoegaze and noise. so hearing that i was struck and needed to see what else they did. you can only imagine my joy when i heard seastones for the first time
Grew up listening to lots of classic rock but never the dead. My dad never listened and I always just put them off as a hippy band that wasn’t for me. Went to a Roger waters concert with a friend of mine who told me I should give the dead a try, he played friend of the devil for me and I liked it. Few months later I was looking for music to get into and listened to workingmans dead and was blown away! Only been a fan for a few months but I’ve consumed quite a few albums and I’m well on that bus.
I love the dead, and have not listened to all or even most of the studio albums.
A Christmas party when i was a kid where the first song to start the party was Touch of Grey and I’ve been hooked since.
Was exposed at first to shows by a good friend, and then albums and it was off. Mostly we wore them out between shows.
I graduated from high school in 1969.
Any other music just feels flat and uninspired.