re: Trying to get into the Grateful Dead

Honestly I'm not really into specific dates except for a handful of the dead's. I was really never that way about specfic dates until XM dead channel and they started airing live shows and I could see the dates. Back when I started listening to them it was rare to find a bootleg that had any great quality to them. Copy of a cassette to a cassette copied to a cassette and so on. I still have a handful of cassette bootlegs but they're had to listen to through that low hiss. The good stuff I had were the live issued albums. Steal Your Face, Europe '72, Dead Set. Now I can just youtube live shows and the quality is pretty nice.

Oldest to Newest:
2.22.69
4.29.71
8.27.72
11.17.73
5.8.77
12.31.78
3.21.81
7.17.89
3.29.90

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Oldest to Newest:
2.22.69
4.29.71
8.27.72
11.17.73
5.8.77
12.31.78
3.21.81
7.17.89
3.29.90

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4-29-71 is one of my favorite live recordings of any band anytime.

I started out with Touch of Grey, but the suggestions here are good.

LINK

No Donna here, just Rubin & Cherise

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The entire show from 5-8-77

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great Dancin' In The Streets if i recall correctly

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What should I start with?

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quitting

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Is it the same for concerts for music lovers? Things like the quotes just blow me away and I can barely wrap my head around it. Like...not only just remembered those specific dates, but I mean what was it about THOSE 2 shows in particular that would separate them from any other GD show?

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Before the days of internet and CDs Grateful Dead fans were dependent on a network of tapers that recorded shows and then traded them for others, similar to trading baseball cards. But of course you didn't lose your original copy.

Concert tapes were usually recorded by mics in an audience. Other times bootleg copies of soundboard patches would surface. They were highly desirable, but even then the sound could be rough.

The Betty Boards surfaced in the 80s (I think) and they were pristine soundboard copies of a handful of shows from the late 70s, arguably one of their most creative live eras. So they spread like wildfire throughout the community. You could purchase them as bootlegs in record and CD stores that offered them.

5/8/77 was one of the best sounding and best played of those Betty Boards. So was it the greatest show ever? no. However, the availability of the great playing and sounding show made it many people's favorites. Same with the next night 5/9/77 and several others. So it enjoys the well-deserved reputation of "best ever." it was also many people's first time hearing them outside of what was commercially available.

JGB>Grateful Dead