{"id":41972,"date":"2010-05-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-05-09T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/live-dead\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T07:31:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T07:31:31","slug":"live-dead","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/live-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"Live\/Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201c[Aoxomoxoa] marked something that wouldn\u2019t be realized for some time: it was the end of [The Grateful Dead\u2019s] early, experimental days. Sure, you could argue that Live\/Dead capped this, but that album is almost a transition piece to me. Anyway, we\u2019ll have this argument when that disc gets reviewed.\u201d<\/o:p><\/i><\/p>\n

– Christopher Thelen, April 1, 2000<\/a> <\/o:p><\/i><\/p>\n

Good news\u2026 the time to argue this has finally arrived, albeit a bit late. Sorry \u2018bout that, by the way \u2013 kind of ended up taking a long, strange trip to get to this point.<\/p>\n

The old saying \u201cThere is nothing like a Grateful Dead concert\u201d is something I only got to experience as truth one time, and that was at the band\u2019s final show on July 9, 1995 in Chicago. If that show blew me away, one can imagine what seeing Jerry Garcia and crew in 1969 had to be like, even without the assistance of pharmaceuticals.<\/p>\n

Live\/Dead<\/i>, a release that was meant to help ease the mounting debt the band was facing thanks to countless hours of studio time, has proven to be one of those live albums that is truly legendary. And, like a typical Dead concert, to me it has both hits and misses, but overall is a solid wrap-up of the first few years of The Dead\u2019s existence.<\/p>\n

The final album to feature Tom Constanten as an official member of the group, there is no denying that this disc captures the group caught between the worlds of blues and psychedelia, though the group was definitely no stranger to crossing genres, and would constantly do this throughout their career. The whole disc, in fact, almost serves as a music lesson for the listener \u2013 often, as in the case of \u201cSt. Stephen,\u201d occurring in the same song.<\/p>\n

The whole essence of The Grateful Dead can be wrapped up in the 23-minute rendition of \u201cDark Star\u201d that opens the disc, a song that is as much a musical journey as it is an impromptu voyage into the unknown. I\u2019ve listened to this particular version dozens of times over the years, and I\u2019m always amazed at how the musical waves ebb and flow, often driven by Garcia\u2019s guitar lines.<\/p>\n

Granted, to the uninitiated, this drawn-out first salvo can often feel overpowering, and it can be. But if the listener simply sits back and allows themselves to be transported on the journey that this particular version takes them on, without worrying about the boundary of time, it proves to be a hell of an adventure.<\/p>\n

That adventure continues with a killer rendition of \u201cSt. Stephen\u201d that leads briefly into an anthem-like drone about William Tell before launching into a full-out jazz barrage that is \u201cThe Eleven.\u201d The way that the band was able to move from genre to genre like this in their early days shows just how versatile (and, in effect, underrated) The Grateful Dead really were.<\/p>\n

The first stumbling block for me \u2013 and I acknowledge this is going to open the doors for the flame wars to begin \u2013 is with Ron \u201cPigPen\u201d McKernan\u2019s turn as lead throat on \u201cTurn On Your Lovelight.\u201d I first became familiar with this song via the six-minute version on Skeletons From The Closet<\/i> not knowing it was a truncated version. As the original sits, clocking in at a hair over 15 minutes, I still appreciate the shortened version more. It sometimes feels like McKernan and the group are stretching this one out a little too much, knowing full well that other versions exist that are even longer. Admittedly, I\u2019ve never been in the \u201cschool of PigPen,\u201d having preferred the years that Brent Mydland was the keyboardist for The Dead, but I just cannot get into the longer version of \u201cLovelight,\u201d no matter how hard I try.<\/p>\n

Garcia slows things down with a bluesy-gospel rendition of \u201cDeath Don\u2019t Have No Mercy,\u201d another song that might confuse and confound new inductees to the world of The Dead. Yeah, it\u2019s not the most exciting thing they ever recorded, but it definitely has its moments, and is worth checking out. \u201cFeedback\u201d is an early tip of the hat to what \u201cSpace\u201d would become at the group\u2019s concerts, a free-form jam session where anything was welcome, musical or not, and it would all somehow segue into a neat coda and a song. In this case, I actually heard the jam begin to take the shape of what became the closing track, \u201cAnd We Bid You Goodnight.\u201d<\/p>\n

The re-mastered CD version, originally released as part of the boxed set The Golden Road<\/i>, contains two bonus tracks. The single version of \u201cDark Star\u201d was previously available on the best-of compilation What A Long, Strange Trip It\u2019s Been<\/i>, but it\u2019s still a pleasure to hear. I can\u2019t say the radio ad for Live\/Dead<\/i> adds much to the mix, though, especially seeing that Bill Kreutzmann was still referred to as \u201cBill The Drummer.\u201d For a band that featured such creativity, this particular ad just doesn\u2019t seem to match that level of originality.<\/p>\n

Live\/Dead<\/i> might not be the kind of disc that you find in constant rotation in your CD deck or iPod, but it is not only worth giving a listen to, but also to dust off every once in a while to remind yourself just what The Dead were capable of in their early days, warts and all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30317,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5668],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-41972","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-grateful-dead","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41972"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52077,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41972\/revisions\/52077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41972"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41972"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}