My friends and a lot of Europe '72

My high school German teacher. Used to give me shows that he taped and then tell me a little bit about the band after each class.

Gooney birds

My parents took me to a couple shows when i was a little guy.....I suppose that is the real root of it all. I went through different musical phases when I was growing up but always listened to the Dead at home. It was great to see everyone who i was hanging around start to listen to them during my college days.....they were all chilling to the studio stuff and I was blowing minds with live tracks from 72 through 81.....We are all so blessed to have been around during this tiny sliver of time.....See them while you can!

being stuck for 6 months on a ship with only europeans who love techno~> 3g of dried cubensis~> a long walk in the woods~> and a copy of Reckoning I picked up in a second hand store in Ketchikan Alaska.


Done deal.

I was originally into a lot of the same blues and country that Jerry Garcia was first influenced by (Chuck Berry, Merle Haggard, etc). After hearing the Grateful Dead's studio albums I wasn't hooked AT ALL, until the night I heard my first live Grateful Dead show on a local public radio station. The live versions of these songs were just SOOO amazing, unlike anything else that existed, so I naturally had to follow that trail which I am still proudly following. I waited in the car until the songs were done so I could hear the radio announcer say what the names were - "Dire Wolf" and "China Cat Sunflower". That "awakening" experience changed my life forever and the memory will remain as vivid as the great sound that caused it.

skipped school when i was 14 dad had the dead records just started listining never stoped going to my first further show on 4-2-11 cant wait.......

Lynx wrote:


A lot of things led up to it but listening to the Space > Fire from Dead Set in the right state of mind sealed it for me.

One of my friends who doesn't know much about them turned me on it was about the acid in the 60's not really the music but a look at some studio albums then the winterland 77 box screwed it. Been addicted ever sense Jerry Garcia was a main factor too.

What a Long Strange Trip It's Been - The Best Of The Grateful Dead*>American Beauty/Workingman's Dead>"Bootlegs">My First Show

The were some paper squares and microdots and drops along the way, but the music and the crowd were what really sold me.





*Ordered without knowing anything about it during one of our periodic underage Columbia House ripoffs. Pure serendipity.

When I was a sophomore in high school, my brother went off to college. We were pretty close and always had a shared love of live music. He comes home one weekend listening to the dead, and I'm like "what is this shit? Do they ever sing?" Slowly he started convincing me, and he bought me 'Skeletons from the Closet' for Christmas. The following summer he and his friends were going to Columbus (3 hr. drive for us) to see the Furthur Festival and he said, ask mom if you can go. And much to my amazement, she said yes!!! The live experience was it for me. I had never had such a moving, live music experience. And I just felt at home in the lot, with people like me. Now words cannot express what this music has done for my life and I will be eternally grateful to my brother, and my super cool mom for letting me go that fateful weekend.

my first time hearing them was my father listening on vinyl - i was about 8 . . . i loved them til i was about 13 ... then i 'met' phish and went a different route... however, about 18 -19 i was lost on the silliness, and paths that made no sense, with no direction home... i was leaving a show, a man was sitting on a curb singing looks like rain and i comforted him and sang with him and from then on.... things were never the same. i was home again. thankful.