Live / Dead

Maaan, too much wankery

Yet another interesting sounding album that ends up taking the bluespill and becoming unbearably boring

Usually I like the Dead, but this album didn't work for me. I prefer when what they play is more "actual songs," less "just jamming for extended periods "

-the first live album I’ve heard by them and my second Grateful Dead experience overall. it was a bit hard to get into at first, just sorta sounded like random shit with guitars. I must confess I thought some of it was a bit of an impenetrable slog and I listen to free jazz.. -had some great highlights though. I was really getting into Turn On Your Love Light… maybe not my kinda thing but still really cool -Favorites are Turn On Your Love Light and Death Don’t Have No Mercy

I've never been a deadhead and now I know why even more than I did before. Dull, meandering purposeless music across this whole album. Not sure if there is an industry award for musical sound editing but this album could really use some heavy editing. I audibly sighed with relief when the album was finished.

I like the dead but I’m not into the whole jammin out type genre

Super fucking garbage

Good god, this was a slog. So much noodling. The first track nearly killed me and I don't know why they placed it first as it seemed (to me) to be the weakest. At least some of the other ones had a hint of a melody.

I initially felt bad for giving this such a low score, but after much thought I've come to the realisation that this album was horrendous The start wasn't too bad. Wasn't my thing and would have been a solid 2 star. Then it got to Feedback and it was like torture to my ears Any respect I had for this album was gone by then. Too much drugs clouding their brains clearly Stay safe kids, don't do drugs 1 ⭐️

Riktigt tråkigt

Meh

3.5/5 Good jam band, but I'm not a fan of live music and there was nothing special

I can smell this one from here. Shitty weed mixed with the pungent aroma of a festival outhouse beckons me to a death that I will almost assuredly be grateful for. If for no other reason than the cessation of this album. 73 minutes of beer belly stink rock from the guys who brute forced a fan base based off of uh, nothing? Well that’s where I start this thing. Change my mind. Dark Star - XIRON DARKSTAR. Exumer reference. Forgot about the song until I saw this title. Now that is an electrifying vocal refrain. Had to go listen to that before I started here. That is a looooooong intro for like three whispered lines of dialogue. This is what the roadie plays while you’re waiting for the band to come out. They sound shy. That contact high can be anxiety provoking. Happens to the best of us. BOOOOO is the sound that blares over the aimlessly meandering guitar in the Fillmore West. It’s me via Time Machine trying to stop what is barely happening on stage. If you don’t hear me, the defrabulator malfunctioned on my TM (Time Machine) and I couldn’t make it. It was that or the numbers got all fucked up. The sentiment remains ageless. A hearty “boo” to all involved. I do like the lyrics though. There. End on a positive. Saint Stephen - Is this about the New Brunswick border town? That town is actually more exciting than this. Mostly due to the abject danger of being in that close proximity to the worst nation on earth. The lyrics appeal to me once again, but the music sounds like Lynyrd Skynyrd pretending to be left wing. The singing is lame and lazy as well. I think the first song tired them out. The Eleven - Well this song starts cooler. That’s a relief. I couldn’t handle any more listless guitar work. This has some welcome chaos but it is again, way too long. Turn on Your Love Light - Gross. This is the worst thing so far. Can’t even bring myself to call it a song. This sounds like if Jim Morrison OD’d and came back with permanent brain trauma. Way too happy, way too aimless. Truly terrible. And quiet the people down. We get it. You grew up in a religious household and now you’ve tried weed. Hurry up and cause the housing crisis already. Any decent riff is immediately derailed by a bad improvisation. I get it. Improvising is hard and they sound cohesive. That takes talent. I’m not here for a talent show with screaming fans. This is braindead. He screams to shock the moronic fans awake. I hate this with a burning passion. I don’t have a “love light,” but if I did, it would be smashed amongst the crushed needles and discarded flower headbands following this cursed gathering of society’s most inebriated nerds. Death Don’t Have No Mercy - You got that right. Or wrong? We’re in double negative city here. Death indeed comes when it’s not wanted and waits far too long for those who suffer the most. I won’t wish death on anybody in this unseen music review, but we’re nearing that point. Another TEN minute song. At least they’ve gone quiet. This is a real showcase for the singer. You know the showcase that you’d definitely trade for the other showcase during Price is Right. The organ is interesting and the song isn’t horrific outside of the poorly recorded vocal passages, but too little too late. Feedback - Best thing going by a mile, but they still found a way to be kind of boring. And We Bid You Goodnight - Thank you. This is the best song. Hey. That feedback and the odd church closer was the best thing by far. Sounds like it finally lulled everybody into their eternal rest or at least a light coma. This is not for me or anybody currently in the throes of sobriety. Even with caffeine and anti-depressants on board, I couldn’t get the buzz needed to see any value in this. And yes, it’s passé to talk about drugs for the entirety of a Grateful Dead review, so I will simply critique the long barren stretches that failed to create atmosphere, the miserable revival church track that nearly purged my breakfast on its own and the remarkably unremarkable playing that was again, too long for an album. I am grateful that this experience is over, and? I’m grateful that my glimpses into the world of The Grateful Dead told me all I needed to know before it was unfurled before me today. This is their best? I pity those who have dedicated their lives to this. In or out of the band. Somebody crack a window. This bad boy is RIPE. 0.5-1 HIGHLIGHTS: Apostles fold their hands in petrified reverence beneath the labyrinthine maw. Hovering. One of three sightings. Magnetized room drags pews inverse. Unctuous tears bead from eyes cast to floor. Mixing with the plasma from stigmata wounds now gaping. Stained glass strains under interdimensional demonic whispers. Consecrated blood shall fill baptismal fonts. Seek servitude or suffer decimation. Pray for rapture.

I will always love St. Stephen. This for me is the definitive version. I don't like this recording of "Turn On...", though. Dark Star is interesting, but does it need to be so long? All told, I think these could have been a four-star gig, were they performed all together (bar "Feedback"!), and if you were, let's say, in the right frame of mind!

What in the bore me to dead was this.

Rubbish

2/10

I’m sorry… I’ve tried. These guys just bore me. And I enjoyed the appropriate drugs once, so I get it. I should like this, but I don’t.

I try really hard to go into each album with an open mind. I make a good faith effort to try to connect with each album, and to listen for things that make my ears and brain happy. I don't think I'm going to be able to do that today. The Grateful Dead were at the bottom of my list of bands I wanted to see pop up today. After accepting my fate, I headed to Wikipedia to do a little light reading about this album, and I saw that this album is SEVENTY MINUTES long. I don't want Jerry Garcia and his merry band of hippies taking up seventy minutes of my Saturday. I got home from breakfast with my family and pulled this album up on Spotify to find out that it was ONLY SEVEN SONGS! Every fact I learn about his album is worse than the last one. Next, I'm going to learn that this album was pressed out of the bones of orphans who died in The Blitz. Ugh, let's get into this one I guess. So, uh... turns out that this album wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Granted, "Dark Star" was a really terrible first song. I hated that it went on for what felt like an eternity, and it never went anywhere interesting. The guitar playing wasn't particularly good, and it felt like each member of the band decided to just do their own thing for nearly half an hour. Thankfully though, the lowest point of the album was out of the way early. “St. Stephen,” “The Eleven,” and “Turn on Your Love Light” were all good songs. They were a touch on the long side, but I was really happy to hear some really good organ playing, which is one of my favorite things to hear in sixties psychedelic music. The guitar playing was much better on those songs as well, and I enjoyed the overall sound on that stretch of the album. “Feedback” was good too, and even though it didn’t have the organ playing that I typically like, I enjoyed its experimental sound. Overall, this album wound up being fine, but getting through “Dark Star” was certainly rough. I can now personally vouch for the fact that the Grateful Dead were better live than they were in the studio.

I wasn't feeling it.

Good instrumental work and decent vocal work. Things ran somewhat too long, especially Feedback.

Jammy, jazzy, but just ok. I don’t know much about the dead but wouldn’t call this groundbreaking.

All sounds the same. Much better blues elsewhere.

Pure jam. Long tracks. Dead gentle high.

The Dead play this musical trick where they jam for what seems like an eternity on some atonal, arhytmic introspective self-indulgence, and it rewires your brain into an uncomfortable musical space, when suddenly they randomly land on a tune of some sort: simplistic, even immature, as if a child were in charge. And then the tension of the previous ten to fifteen minutes is released and you get a big dopamine hit. Boom. Very clever. Some of the stuff can be hypnotic, for sure. Some of Garcia's guitar is interesting, and you can spot that unique tone from miles away, very iconic. And I'm just going to leave it there because I'm trying to keep it positive. I don't love it, but it deserves a place on this list.

I don't understand why Robert Dimnery has such a hard on for live albums. I wasn't there strung out on acid in the middle of a field, so I can't relate to the feeling of the day, or the flow of the jam sessions at all. So this album just decends onto boring acid induced noodling that has no structure. I get that Grateful Dead were a huge jam band beloved by many, but remove the drugs from the equation, and you're just left with a huge mess. I tend to like The Dead's studio albums, where structure and musical theory are applied and refined, but when cranked up on drugs and left to their own devices, they just flounder about and don't really achieve anything. Live albums are a real gamble, because they either go really well, and the experimentation that is always present on live albums hits, or, as in this case, they fail, and you're left with a steaming dumpster fire. It's a shame, because it's a blemish on an otherwise perfectly good blues rock band. Favorite songs: Turn On Your Love Light, St. Stephen Least favorite songs: Feedback, Death Don't Have No Mercy 3/5

Can't fault the playing Can fault the self indulgence

It says something bad about the Grateful Dead that their meandering nothing jams are far more listenable than their song segments. A person can at least imagine being deep into a trip & seeing something in the jams. It says something bad about how I've aged that I'm not as immediately repulsed by the aggressive limpness of this band. music: hated. (⌐■_■)

[three minutes into the first song] “Huh maybe I like the Grateful Dead?” [six minutes into the first song] “Ok let’s wrap this up.” [there are still eleven minutes to go in in the first song] Listened to the whole thing, but that was the experience.

Far from their best live album, but still a classic.

Bit too rambling for my tastes

Decent. Skillful noodling. I really like St Stephen on here, but overall the album did not do it for me. I like Grateful Dead, I’ve attended a concert of theirs (in junior high with my entire family), they have one or more albums that deserve to be on this list, but this album was not connecting with me for whatever reason.

I’ve gone from disliking to grudging respect to genuinely liking the Dead, and this is the best Dead album I’ve heard yet. The joke of songs taking forever and meandering around with no purpose is clearly misguided, the longer songs are given room for exploration, and when it’s good, it’s downright thrilling. A couple songs kind of stay in the standard blues arrangements that don’t do as much for me. But the rest was pretty great.

4. 5 if I were stoned. As a guy that is a casual Dead fan and saw Dead & Company at The Sphere, I can confidently say that this was good. Man, it must have been fun to be in this band. And fun to see them live. They could play and they could jam.

Far too experimental to the point where it was basically just noise at times - so I didn’t get any enjoyment out of it.

In the context of time - groundbreaking

I want to like the Grateful Dead but it’s just so hard

started out a high 3 but got pretty stale

They’re great musicians but I need more structure.

This ain't it

A jam band jamming With effortless grace and timing To keep you engaged

Not for me

Here I was thinking that Phish were a shitty interpretation of the Dead. Come to find out they’re both a cruel joke. Ffs don’t open with a quarter-hour “song” that goes nowhere. This is why you don’t try to make are *while* tripping balls.

Pretty awful. A rock version of improvisational jazz where each musician is doing their own thing. But pretty awful.

was pretty underwhelmed and took it as a sign of how far jamming has come in the last 55 years - and then Turn On Your Love Light came on and oh boy it's fantastic

Overall: 4/10 I'm impressed by the musicianship on display here, and I'm sure it would have been an incredible experience to witness this live. However, almost 60 years later, I just don't find myself enjoying this. It's overlong, overindulgent and, quite frankly, boring. I found it hard to get through and I certainly won't be checking it out again. Great musicians though. Fav Song: The Eleven Least Fav Song: Dark Star

There are moments of interesting spread throughout this hour, but they don't quite make up for the fact that this is over an hour of jamming. 2.5/5

Live / Dead is the fourth album from the Grateful Dead, and their first live release. The album was much more successful than their first three, and came close to capturing the live, improvisational dynamic of their live performances. The Grateful Dead was primarily a live act, and their shows became a cultural phenomenon. The Grateful Dead's songbook is an iconic element of modern music, and their improvisational sound is the model for jam bands of a range of genres. Their impact on modern popular music cannot be overstated, and this live recording is a snapshot of the magic that was a Dead show.

Not a deadhead Only stand out was a 36 second song (truly beautiful though) “And we bid you goodnight”

Groovy, but get to the fucking point already.

The grateful dead, yeah I bet they're grateful cos they don't have to listen to this shit.

Prefiro Allman Brothers, mas não é ruim. Só o começo e o fim do disco que não são tão bons.

Your least favorite coworker’s favorite band.

I like the Dead and I am very much in the minority that probably prefers their studio stuff, especially albums that came from 1971 on, so this really did not do much for me at all. St Stephen is really the highlight and this wouldn’t come close to being my favorite version

There’s guitar noodling, and then there’s whatever “Dark Star” was in 1969. I have always been real meh about the Dead and this doesn’t make me love it that much. Not that there aren’t some decent moments, here. “St. Stephen” and “Eleven” work really well together and the “Feedback” jam is a real high point, gorgeously weaving noise in melody. But man this is a slog to get through.

stick to the feedback solos fellas

lots of jamming but little essence

uhhh. uhhhhhhhhhh. hm. i mean this was cool but impossible to distinguish any of the songs from each other and they were all like 15 minutes long. yeah. i mean it was good but so uhhhhhhh

Pre-listening thoughts: oh piss off Post/during listening thoughts: yeah dude a 23 min opener is almost rude. Let me just tune my instrument for five minutes (and then again for 8 more, and we’ll call it a whole separate song!) and then we can start playing, and yes we have to include this segment on the live album! WHY! This reminds me of that Hawkwind album (except not quite as egregiously terrible). Live psychedelic rock may just not be for me. Maybe I need to be high for this? Questioning why Lindsay Weir went to be a groupie for these guys. 3/10 DID I NEED TO HEAR THIS BEFORE I DIE: no Fav tracks: And We Bid You Goodnight (thank god it’s over!) Least fav tracks: Death Don’t Have No Mercy, FEEDBACK (like if I was in the audience I would be throwing tomatoes.)

I reckon this'll get pretty good when they finally finish tuning up. Probably not the best way to be introduced to the Dead

strange, some parts feel like disgruntled messing and jamming, and some feel very cohesive, progressing songs. I like how the first 3 or 4 songs are actually just one long song divided into multiple sections. Lack of vocals aren't a problem, and when there are (other than the 4th song) they aren't bad. Clearly a very talented band who have the improvisational thing down. Favourite songs: all except the 4th one ( I don't really want to count the last 2 as proper songs, although the feedback one does get better throughout) Overall around 7/10

3.5

Just no

Pretty chill, pretty good

Overall, it's not bad. Some of the sounds in the first track were a little annoying, but then it was quite comfortable. 7 out of 10.

I don’t think they picked the right GD albums for this list.

Grateful Dead...what an iconic group, and I was excited to hear an album by them to get the full vibe. I am not super familiar with them but knowing they have such a avid fan base I was excited to be pulled into their world. Wasn't super excited about the Live idea but thought maybe that would be an extra shining star because of people following them around so their live work must be amazing. In retrospect the live album just left it open to long drawn out songs that didn't go anywhere and no interaction with the crowd to improve the overall vibe. Dark Star was not how I would have started the album to draw a person in. It was slow, long and didn't really draw me in and make me want to continue. St. Stephen was good (would have made a much better start). The Eleven was not my fav but again would have been better then Dark Star, it was more improvising but at least it was exciting. I don't mind improvising a little, but an hour of it is just too much for me. Death Don't Have No Mercy was my favorite. In the world of improvising it is good maybe even great in this world. Then 7 minutes of feedback...why? Maybe this is them and their style, which means they are just not for me.

A jam without a centering substance is a jelly. So jammy it's jelly. I appreciate the band's ideas about live music (no two shows the same, extended jams and creative approaches to songwriting) and it's cool that they created a whole counterculture following largely due to their dedication to playing so many live shows. The music has it's moments with some great playing but overall not so much my thing. I guess you had to be there.

This album is really amazing when you’re high as a kite. I took that trip a few years back, and listening sober now, I hear the importance of going deep here. These jams are absolutely meant to lose your F’ing mind in. That’s the appeal of The Grateful Dead. If you’re not high, this is just background music.

I've never explored the Dead, so was kind of excited to have an excuse to do so today and see what all the fuss is about. I'm mixed on it. I really liked Turn on Your Love Light, they totally rocked that one and I didn’t care how long it was. Death Don’t Have No Mercy was pretty cool too. Did not at ALL like Feedback. That one just felt like noise, which was maybe the point but why. And the rest...overall cool vibes, but most of the tracks get too long and jammy. Like, some of the songs feel like ONLY a jam without a centering substance. But if I was at a music festival and feeling good, this would be great music to lay back on a blanket to and let myself get lost in.

Good one

When I first saw a Grateful Dead album I was definitely disappointed. I've tried listening to them many times over the years, often with little success. As a fan of psychedelic music, stoner rock and the genres surrounding those sounds, you'd think I'd love these guys, but I just don't get it. I've read books about the times they came up in, dove deep into the culture and even "opened" my mind to the "experience". I still just can't with the jam bands. As far as Dead albums go, I didn't hate this one. It dragged on for too long and meandered way off course too many times, but this is all par for the course of the Dead. Maybe I'm just tired, maybe the world is just crashing down a little too hard, maybe I just need another cup of coffee. Anyway, this one was ok. 2.25/5, but I'm rounding down.

Never been a dead head so I find it difficult to get into jam bands which is strange because I do like jazz and that's a true definition of jam band.

Typical gd

I will never understand the appeal of Grateful Dead as a band. They have a couple of songs that I do not mind listening to, but for the most part I would rather not listen to their music. Enjoy your jams Deadheads, I'm not saying no one should listen to this and I'm happy you find joy in something, but it's not for me.

I love the Dead so I enjoyed this very much. Not necessarily a fan of everything by the Dead. Great way for me to start my day. Sit back and relax.

was pretty meh about this

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Better than unalive Dead.

Grateful Dead picked up where Cream left off (at least live) and took it even further. This is psychedelic blues improvisation at its finest. They would go on to have a very long career but it was built on live performances. This album was the first live release and opened up the band to a much larger audience outside the Bay Area.

nice version of dark star

En parte entiendo el desdén que hay hacia este álbum en esta web. No es una escucha fácil; son temas largos y con mucha improvisación. Pero eso es precisamente lo bueno. Aunque no soy gran fan de las jam bands, hay que reconocer la influencia que tuvo Grateful Dead en incontables grupos dentro de un estilo que, además, sigue estando muy vivo. Además, musicalmente es buenísimo. Hacen una mezcla de estilos única y difícil de superar, incluso con influencias gospel, pero siempre bajo la estética psicodélica de los 60. Será largo y a veces lento o repetitivo, pero a mí me parece genial.

Think freeform Jazz....but rock instead. It started off interesting and then the bass player started doing his own thing, so the guitarist started doing his own thing and it just sounded. Like a mess, I made it to the last track and 2 mins into it I noped out.

Idk it was pretty good. An easy listen if I were on the smoke

This was just a little underwhelming for all the hype that surrounds this band. I don’t really understand why they’re such a big deal if this album highlights their talents. I am completely unimpressed and un phased. Like I don’t necessarily strongly dislike it or anything, but I just don’t get it…

I'm rarely moved either way by the Dead. Like "Dark Star" seems nice in/at any particular 1 or 2 minute point but it *never.goes.anywhere* - the world's longest intro to a song that never arrives. And yes that's a/the cliché with this band but that doesn't mean it isn't true. Apply to virtually all the songs. Man it's so disappointing that they made a song in 11/8 boring to me. And honestly who the hell is listening to those last 8+ minutes.... "Feedback?" what a prank - I thought Sabbath's "FX" was the biggest prank by a major band on an album but apparently they couldn't hold a candle to the Dead. I guess digesting the GD is more akin to channeling a mood rather than expecting "traditional" song structure, etc. I know this intellectually yet any time I hear them I think I expect some dramatic bridge or breakdown. They're always instantly recognizable which is probably the ultimate goal for any artist - that individuality. I could see maybe enjoying this as background music. Just for me trying to actively listen it's just too much. Or no...maybe I should say it's not ever enough. It's just bland and completely and utterly unfocused - never approaches danger or even passion? It's fine if you like this but it's .... limp. 5/10 2 stars.

rock bom pra deixar tocando de fundo, não é muito pesado. Muito marcado pelo estilo psicodélico à la Raul Seixas

I can imagine this being in people's record collection. As you flick through deciding what to play next. Ooh, The Grateful Dead live, shall I play this? Um..... nah. I know The Dead are renowned for their live albums but I prefer their late sixties studio albums. This is listenable with some great playing but a bit boring.

Im grateful not too be dead I suppose.

Didn't think I'd like this, but in amongst all the expected infernal noodling nonsense there were a couple of great tracks. (I also liked the tracks that sounded a bit like Zappa but it turns out that Spotify had been playing me some Zappa after the album ended)

Very much not bothered by this. I've never got what the guys was all about. Maybe there was a drought of good music in the ol' Americana dustbowl of the 50’s when your choice was a sticky black quiff or a washboard and a piece o' chewin' straw.

Now I like Hippy Jazz, but I also like Experimental Rock. But which is better? There's only one way to find out, FIGHT!!!

I'm dissapointed. I heard great things about this band but what I hear here is basically a long Jam session rehearsal. The ones you record and then check for ideas to turn into actual songs. But in this case, it was released as an album. Beats me why this album is so important. It's just sounds boring and disconnected to me.

I know they are a thing, but this album is not my thing.

That was really fucking shit. 1001 albums to make you hate Robert Dimery. You have awful taste in music Robert. Did your dad show you this? Your dad had awful taste too.

It's just so self indulgent.

You know what you need to listen to before you die? A bunch of jackasses vamping on their guitars for twenty minutes at a time. Live!

Snore.

For how much people talk about dark star on this album I just don’t get it. It was easily the weakest track on this album. It sounded like they were recording in separate rooms but the microphones were outside the rooms. It was clunky and not cohesive. So I was not looking forward to the rest of the album. But right after that is a three song run that really jammed and was a lot of fun. Those three songs are all I’d really return to on this album, but I would gladly listen to them again. The rest of the album is fine but a little too bluesy for my taste. I’m still interested in checking out more of the Dead, I’d probably just pick something from a little later in their tenure.

All noodling all the time. Five tracks in a four-side set - feedback is exactly that, a final goodbye....I find Dark Star a bit too Dead for me, but the other four tracks are pretty good.

Lots of great tunes

More live albums. Yay. Never listened to Grateful Dead before. And I wish I could still say the same. The album was boring and didn't really go anywhere. And one entire track was nothing but microphone feedback. Terrible album. Best song: Turn On Your Love Light

Having praised American beauty … um. This is a record of a live performance by American psychedelic group grateful dead. Guess you had to be there. 1.5

I never understood the appeal of the Grateful Dead, and, believe me, I've tried. Their studio albums are dull and enervating to my ears, but fans say "oh, you really had to experience the Dead _live_, they're such great musicians, and they take improvisations to a higher plane. It's transcendent". OK, so here we are listening to Live/Dead, so let's see what it has to offer. Fuck me, this is a terrible band playing terrible music terribly. It takes a full 35 minutes before they start playing like a coordinated band all playing the same song at the same time. All of Dark Star and most of St Stephen and the first half of The Eleven are seven musicians independently and disjointedly noodling without listening to each other at all. I almost thought they had recorded themselves tuning up at interminable length, except for the fact that their guitars are not in tune. The. Guitars. Are. Not. In. Tune. And then there is 'Feedback". Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of copious feedback and noise in a live setting (I'm seen my share of Sonic Youth shows) but this is interminable. The only time they sound like a competent band (and only a barely competent bar band at that) is with Pigpen singing 'Turn On Your Love Light'. As a non-American, I can't really understand the American fascination with the Grateful Dead — admittedly not all Americans — but it is notable that the Dead don't really have a significant following in any other market. I suspect that the everyday experience of enduring racism, late-stage capitalist exploitation, creeping fascism and gun violence is so soul-destroying that that it is a welcome respite to put on a tie-dyed t-shirt, smoke weed, drop acid, and hang out with a few thousand like-minded souls while you chill out and dance to non-threatening musical noodling. Hard to blame anyone for that, but please don't make me listen to it. I don't understand the praise for the Dead — Allmusic says that this album "was able to relay the intrinsic sonic magnificence of a Dead show in real time... including the sidelong epic and Deadhead anthem Dark Star". Sonic magnificence my arse. 'Dark Star' in particular is tuneless meandering and unfocussed waffle. This is a 1.5 star record, rounding down because of the deluded way that the Cult of the Dead praise this shit. I don't care if you like this band, just don't try to browbeat me that this is the greatest thing since sliced bread. You're delusional. I would have to take _a lot_ of drugs to sit through a performance like this. I once snapped both bones in my forearm and dislocated my wrist. The hospital shot me full of morphine to handle the excruciating and unrelenting pain while I waited for surgery. I reckon I could sit through a Dead show on that amount of drugs, but no less.

I am now anti-drug.

Ugh so boring. Not even good background music

If you only listen to The Eleven, Turn On Your Love Light and Death Don't Have No Mercy it's a pretty good album

It was different, not what I typically expect from the dead

When they do their extended jams I can’t get into it. It sounds annoying. But sometimes I like when they play songs and I will always love Jerry Garcia’s voice. I prefer Grateful Dead, the studio band.

I know that I should have liked it, but I didn't. Hard to find a good reason.

Grateful Dead mejor en directo que en estudio... pero claro, hay que saber que nos esperan minutadas de largos desarrollos y psicodelia. Dark Star es la joya del disco. La portada es de lo mejor, aún sin logo ni esqueletos, flores y calaveras que vendrán en unos años. Un disco muy influyente que les dejó a las puertas de la gloria, las que abrirían al año siguiente con su dos mejores discos

I listened to a lot of 60s dead when I was young, but don't tolerate nearly as well now. A year later they were so much more polished and cohesive. This one is particularly chaotic and not a pleasant listen. This not close to the Dead's best live release, that would be Europe 72, which would've been an easy 5 for me. Without a Net from the late 80s is also considerably better

The first track which is 15 minutes long, is like a group of chimps have found instruments and they each stumble across different notes which kind of resemble music but none of it goes together. The album does pick up slightly in the middle but then deteoriates. A real tough listen overall.

Pretty decent.

This was really bad.

A few reasons for me to rate this album down: first: it is a live-album :( second: it is a double album :( third: I like neighter the vocals nor the never ending instrumental parts:( 1,5

2 not a huge jam band guy. You have to listen to 20 minutes of garbage for one minute of genius. Grateful Dead’s studio albums are much better

God damn that first track dragged. It came up a notch later bit it was a low floor.

Blind album, know the artist. Snoozefest amd it dragged on for so long. Why was there a song that was all feedback???

# 408 : oh no! not a live album! I think I'd rather drill holes in my head.

boringggg

I honestly can't think of a less essential album than this. It sucked for every second.

I enjoyed it, the music is good But I'm not interested in live albums Fine. 3

Yeah I'm bailing on this. It has some moments of genius I'm sure, but I'm not patient enough to stick around and find them

Pretty cool album, a bit too experimental for me, but at times incredibly groovy. It it weren't for the incredibly dissonant screetchy sounds at times, I could see myself listening to this more.

Sounds like guitar center on a saturday

Surprisingly good but why do I keep getting albums with 20 minute tracks??

sorry. I will die before I listen to this.

There’s no song structure. Feels aimless. Like they are still tuning their guitars. It’s kinda sloppy sounding. I’m all for deconstructing art, but this doesn’t sound like it was ever even written down. I couldn’t even call this jamming. Just guys trying to follow each other, with no leader. Maybe a head full of acid would help? I thought there would be more music to their music. Can’t really hang your hat on anything here.

This album felt like it would never end. Just The longest live show ever, with nothing really happeening. I suppose that's expected from a jam band. Parts with vocals were okay songs, but even those felt like they went on too long. I think the only way I would recognize grateful dead's (or dead & co's) sound is by how long it went on for. If things were around 7 minutes or less I'd probably give it a two star (which to me means it's not bad, it's listenable, just wasn't right, or n this case great, to me. Nothing I'd choose to listen to again, but not mad if someone else put it on, infrequently. However, the wanting things to desperately be over made me grow to loath the album.

Great jam music.

I'm not a jam band hater, and I would never dismiss music because it chooses to improvise for extended periods. I love bands like KGLW and my first concert was Dave Matthews Band (lmao). Jazz and avant garde have always been genres I gravitate to as well. However, the entire 73 minutes of this feels so unnecessary. These are essentially basic, soulless blues songs, extended way past their welcome, meandering for far too long. The musicianship of the Dead is a highlight, but the compositions and vocal performances leave so much to be desired. I can feel that there are supposed to be those big jam "moments" on the album, like the slow blues on Death Don't Have No Mercy, or the extended solos on Turn on Your Love Light, but each of them fall so flat for me. I did not enjoy this at all. 4/10

Less a band and more a group of people playing on top of each other. At its best it’s technically gifted blues rock, at its worst it’s terrible jazz. Also the singing, when relevant, is often just bad.

cool live

Honestly, this was such a journey. My first thoughts were - this is *scattered* But you know what? As I kept listening I started to feel the authenticity of this type of music - the meandering feels like a very true expression of something. Though idk, it's not something I could listen to all the time. "Turn on Your Love Light" was my favorite track on the album by far. It had the kind of energy that seems to hold my attention even as the track moves into its 15th minute. 3

I’m the perfect amount of high. Bi-rite sammy hitting hard. I think I’m two songs in and I have pro-shot of one of their performances on tv, muted, and the AirPods play the album. Turn on Spatial Audio and center it on the tv. Honestly doesn’t matter that the song I’m hearing is not what’s on tv. I guess that’s the … lost my train of thought. Oh I meant to say that I recommend that while listening to this, you get so high you think that you’re seeing is what you’re hearing can transcend time and connect the present with the past. I hear the jazz influences on this rock (?) band! Even how the keyboard can sound like a horns section. Blues! They look like hippie early garage startup individual contributors that met in music school 30 years ago and decided to reconnect in their midlife and do hallucinogenic drugs and try to play instruments like the good old days. Maybe that’s just Jerry Garcia. Man if I move my head with Spatial Audio, it’s like right in front of me. My legs and arms are all tingly. If this just The first song, I’m screwed. Oh ok thank god it’s the 4th song. Turn on your love life, singing is very southern rock. I bought crunchy snacks because that’s what usually love but now I want something sweet! Mercy song. Found chocolate cereal and creamy peanut butter. I keep feeling the jazz and blues in this. But then there will be like a very classic guitar riff that pulls you back into this tumultuous genre bending song. One and a half eternities left in Death Mercy song. I have these chickpea snacks. Not hitting. Need way more flavor, Biena. Bbq like turns bitter. Ho shit there were flames on stage. I got cold and put two jackets on because I don’t trust myself to light a pilot light right now. Oh now I’m getting dizzy looking at my phone with this feedback track. Oh I might throw up if I keep looking at my phone. Looking at TV for a bit. Need candy. Found frozen fruit. A fave. Jerry isn’t wearing shoes. Awwwww this little lullaby is so cute and good! Railroad song and Beatles. AWW THAT’S IT?!? I want like TEN MORE MINUTES OF THIS LULLABY! 5 star idgaf

Pre: Never really been a Dead fan save a few songs. Interested to see how this goes. Mid: I'm on the penultimate track, and I can say with honesty that I'm still not a Dead fan. Post: It's over. Thank the lord. 1/5.

Boh 76 minuti di strumentale non li concepisco

Jam album som förväntat, har bra moments men int helt min grej. Bästa låten: Death Don't Have No Mercy

Too experimental, does not feel like a song.

JAM BAND!

pretty mid

What did one Deadhead say to the other Deadhead when he ran out of dope? Man, this music really sucks!

i really want to give the dead a chance and see why everyone likes them but holy shit this album goes nowhere but goes on forever

I like a lot of what the Dead did post-1969. This, however, is complete dogshit.

just background music but pretty solid background music

I really like Workingman's Dead and American Beauty. After that you can keep the rest of their stuff. This album is brutally bad. That first track - someone should tell these guys they're not jazz musicians. And they absolutely destroy Death Don't Have No Mercy. If this is an accurate example of their live shows, I honestly do not understand what the hell all the Dead head stuff is about.

There's lots of energy in the album. And the pieces are a times very powerful and complex. These are sometimes followed by slow and parts that drag on however, however the technecality of the instrumentals was top notch and in terms of sound quite like king crimson and other prog acts. Overal the album was a great piece of live music, which in terms of momentum was a little unbalanced at times, but very enjoyable nonetheless. Favorite song: The Eleven. Overall score: 7.0/10

A legendary Dark Star for a perfect 5 stars

The guitar work on this is great, but the album is so long and drags and begins to lose focus. I understand that is part of jam music, but it detracts from the album for me.

Good musicianship for sure but kind of a chore to listen to

Oh man, did I not enjoy this album. It took me way too long to get through it, and I was left worse for wear. I don't mind Grateful Dead; I actually quite like them. However, this album has left a very sour taste in my mouth, one which I am desperately trying to get rid of.

Who knew I was a Dead Head? I even loathe live albums and this just felt like an hour long song. Very little crowd interaction good or bad which I prefer, just straight up funky, groovey, bluesy jam session.

During the first six minutes I thought that maybe people were judging this a little too harshly, it was looking to be a cool jam album with some interesting arrangements. Then the rest of the album happens and it all just devolves into 6 or 7 people making random sounds that may or may not be in time and/or have anything to do with what the other people are doing. And mostly not. I don't get why people were so dedicated to this band. Actually, yes I do. Drugs. That's why. I'm sure The Dead thought this was incredible while they were whacked out of their minds on stage. But then you listen back to it and think "wow that's not even in tune". This album solidifies my contention that The Grateful Dead are the most overrated band of all time. 2/5 I guess because the first 6 minutes are cool and there are actually real instruments being played, poorly. And there are a few interesting parts here and there.

Ja vet maar moet ik zeker nog een keer luisteren, klinkt wel echt als iets dat ik tof vind

This sits firmly alongside At Fillmore East in terms of the great Jam Band live recordings, with exponential guitar mastery across a multitude of often double-digit length tracks, long in their listing but short in actuality - solidifying the Dead as one of the greatest live acts in history. Producing something this explorative to the mass market in ‘69 was surely no mean feat. There’s no taster for what’s to come in this album, because the ‘what’ is given permission to land straight away with the twenty three minute opener of Dark Star, crawling through and highlighting every aspect on that stage in San Francisco. What follows does not pale in comparison, the concentrated yet crazed Turn On Your Love Light leading disc 2, into a mellow, mean blues in the form of Death Don’t Have No Mercy, serving as the real closer before a truly confident addition of Feedback, certainly an acquired taste. An infamous live performance functioning just as well as a studio album, with added extended flair exclusive to the Dead’s all-encompassing stage presence.

Huge Dead fan here but a realistic reviewer. The Greatful Dead were a poor studio band and thrived on stage, as we all know. The obvious fix here is to release a live album, giving the masses what some have only heard about thru word of mouth. The problem here is that the Dead released, with Live/Dead, some of their least accessible material and that's saying something. St Stephen is the only track here with meat on the bone, and while the subsequent The Eleven is an exemplary version, and the preceeding Dark Star is contemplative and subversive, neither of these tracks are able to speak to your average listeners. This Lovelight contains 6+ min of Pigpen gaming over a drum beat and is very dull, sans the last 2 min of the 15min ordeal. DDHNM is a stirring rendition of a song nobody asked for, and feedback/goodnight is a s close to filler as one can get on a live record. Still as I write this and reflect on their 60's repotoire, I do realize that no normie was gonna stumble upon the Dead thru happenstance, hearing an intriguing live record, the show always was and always will be the centerpiece

Early legit non-bootleg albums, A joy!

I’m sure this rocked in person, but it’s a little too meandering to be a coherent album.

Lots to like, but the meandering jams lose me.

Woof

4.0

An hour and a quarter of aimless meandering. Feedback especially pointless. A generous two.

I know they were good but I could never really get into their music.

Unequivocally awful. Why was this even made? I refuse to believe that anyone would listen to this under their own free will... let alone pay money for the displeasure...

I’m rather indifferent by this. Mostly bored. Didn’t draw my attention. Should’ve know when it started with a 16 minute instrumental track.

It was slightly better than their studio album on this list but it is still just a bad album. It has no structure, they were just jamming but it sounded like they barely knew what they were playing. It was ok listening it in the background. I think this band was at the right time at the right place, I have always found them overrated and this album proved it again.

Jedna od boljih death starova je ovdje. I ovo im je možda najbolji live period. Strašno organska i intuitivna svirka.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but this band is terrible. I felt like I was going to fall asleep listening to the slow crawl of "jamming" - I'd prefer to jam my finger in a door.

obviously a huge part of the grateful dead experience is a sort of Ritual aspect that i cant get from just listening to one show...becoming familiar with the songs as frameworks from which New but Metatextually Related experiences are to be grown each time. thankfully im atm perfectly fine just being left with The Music here which is so obviously incredible lol...ive been most prepared for this by my dives into live frank zappa and the like, but i already prefer this to a lot of that. the hypnotic, mind-expanding qualities are so sincere and carried to a great variety of places, from colorfully dexterous jazzy explorations to crushing churning blues to fucked up noise...extremely inviting for such supposedly difficult music, they just wanna blow ur mind!! intensely likable as a vibe and extremely pleasurable as a collection of sounds. im sure ill carve out more time for the dead at some point

This was a ride and to be honest I'm not sure what to say about the album. Its a mix of a lot of things both from song to song but it also switches within the songs themselves. It was a fun listen but not something I enjoy enough to listen to again I think.

I think I'm still listening to the first song. 2.4.

No song should be 20 minutes long. Personal enjoyment: 2/5 Relevance to this list: 4/5

Damn, I loved this album as a creativity boost. Got me in the zone.

It seems like every year, a peer I respect falls head over heels for the Grateful Dead. I’ve been trying their music for years and just do not get the hype. This is fine, solidly fine.

Meh

Now I love the Dead, and I love the Dead live... but this is the most meh live album of the Dead out there. There are so many better choices than this one.

That's not my taste in music. Very long-winded and monumentale.

This is great when you're in the mood for meandering psychedelia, and no one does it better. It's not really my thing, but it's great background music at least.

Someone said "half an album of the band tuning" and yea I think that kind of nails it. What is going on here.

Not for me.

Oh the songs are long Favorites: St. Stephen, The Eleven It wasn't boring, rather relaxing

Never heard this album before. Although I don't consider myself a huge fand of the Dead, I did enjoy a lot of this album. The recording sounds great...I can't believe it was recorded in 1969. This is a "historic document" as it laid the groundwork for jam bands for the future. (Which probably earns them an equal amounts of blame and praise) The band sounds energetic and "young" and I enjoyed songs like Turn on Your Love Light a lot. Dark Star is famous for the Dead, but it really does sound like every meandering jam band song I've heard at a festival. In any case, the plusses are greater than the minuses for me, and I'm giving it a (strong) 3 stars.

Well, it was OK, but just not that great, in my mind.

I guess you had to be there. I feel like at this point they represent more of a brand or lifestyle than noteworthy music. Feedback is painful. OK, what's next?

Never been a Deadhead. This didn't change that. I've seen Keith Emerson physically torturing organs and it was more enjoyable than "Feedback".

Look everyone knew it was gonna be an hour and a half of janky, ambiguous jam music. The Dead is a lot like Jazz. All improv, barely any structure and understated melodies with little repitition. Lets not pretend they are or would ever be Mozart here. But think of what this did for live albums and for music in general for a second. Right in the pits of the counter culture movement. This album and band showed up to destroy and dismantle the notion that music needs structure and rules. Hell no. And thus the Grateful spearheaded the jam revolution. As for live album relevance and innovation. This album pushed the envelope of what a live album should be, so open and full of space. Admittedly with music that can only be enjoyed while tripping sack. Not just prim and polished live albums. Instead raw, live and unique albums are acceptable. All that good being said Allman Bros live at filmore east blows this shit out of the water. 2 stars.

Nobody in the band is listening to anyone but themselves so the end result is a pastiche of individual short musical ideas that don’t really go anywhere. I can understand that this is exactly the point of the Dead. Personally while it’s not for me it has helped me with my insomnia tonight.

I understand Deadheads now

Not my genre.

In a nutshell: kick out the jams I'm sceptical of live albums on this list. The sound quality is variable as years go on. And it's so hard to capture the vibe the audience felt the night the concert was recorded. Which is partly where Live/Dead is unconvincing. The guitars are sharp, sometimes the drums. The vocals, not so much. It jams longer than necessary. Deadheads and psychedelic rock affectionados should love it. For me, it loses direction quickly. It's not that I don't like meandering jams (I like Khrungabin and I don't mind jazz). Maybe it's because I'm not *with it*. Or not high. Overall: 3/10

Oh please no, I've heard hippie music before and I hated it... This was no exception...

I've had enough of these purposeless jamming sessions. You would have to take up smoking week to enjoy this.

not my type

long, sympathetic jams and grooves, with lovely improvisational feel

Ei ollut vieläkään punkkia :D Psykedeelistä blues rokkia livenä. Pitkät instrumentti osuudet ajoittain hiukan pitkästyttäviä vaikka ihan siistejä onkin. Feedback oli vähän turha, kirjaimellisesti pelkkää feedbackia. Parhaat: Turn On Your Love Light, The Eleven

boh non mi sta a dire niente..

Plays exactly like you would expect from a long live album from Grateful Dead.

If you know Grateful Dead in any way, you know exactly what you’re getting. I’m still not at all sold on the idea of this 15 minutes rendition of “Turn On Your Love Light”. I know that they can jam out some standout blues - this just isn’t it.

Let's just say this is not going in my "Stuff I didn't hate in 1001 albums" playlist.

Mi piacerebbe dare un voto ma mi sono suicidato dopo le prima canzone

Ma è legale aprire un album con una canzone da 23 minuti? La risposta è no.

Holy hell what a boring slog. Never listened to grateful dead before. Never want to again. There were a couple moments when something got interesting but when it did I was so mind numb I couldn't remember to check which track and which minute it happened.

A really fun vibe session that ends on a bit of an overstayed note. The songs were a lot of fun to listen to - I've heard the Dead were a huge improv group, but this album was some truly excellent musical chemistry. I do think the last 8 minutes could have been left off, but there is something neat about making a song from feedback.

10/10

Grateful Dead - Live/Dead The first live album by the Dead. I first discovered the Dead in 1987 when they released their song, Touch of Grey. I still remember the video and watching it on MTV. Then I never thought about them again for many decades. In 2000ish I started my fascination with Phish and with the advent of the internet, I found my way back to the Dead. Starting that journey I started listening to American Beauty. It became my starting point into their catalog. I never got fully obsessed with the band, but I did respect their contribution to the music landscape. One thing I did find out was that their live shows reflected their true musicianship and while I enjoyed the studio albums, they couldn't hold a candle to the live stuff. Live/Dead is the beginning of what would become their legacy. The live shows and tape trading made them immortal. We still get new live shows released that have been remastered from those tapes. While I never got to see the Dead play live, I can sit back with any of their live recordings and feel like I was there. 5/5

Noodle noodle noodle. I knew about the myth of the Dead long before I'd ever heard them and I was a bit surprised. It wasn't what I expected at all. It's fine, for them. For me it's just a bit aimless. Fun fact - they played their first UK gig at a festival in a village on a farm behind my house a month before I was born.

A live recording of a jam band does not really work for an album. The Grateful Dead are very famous and I want to give them a decent chance. About 10 minutes into the first "song" I started to get a bit fatigued listening to it and then some discordant noises made me skip to the next one. The music itself was eh okay but I'd rather listen to planned out songs rather than 4 people randomly playing stuff independently. I'll give one of their studio albums a chance.

Listened Before? N Like, allllright man! The Dead! Love these guys. I have not heard this particular recording before, and it's a good one. The inclusion of a 23 minute version of Dark Star as all of side one of the double album is spectacular. I was groovin. This is early stuff, so not as polished as some of their later publications but they were tight and awesome jammers even back then. Added to Library? N Songs added to playlist: St. Stephen

if i wanted to listen to live drunk tuneless yodeling for an hour and fifteen minutes, i'd just walk down 6th street at 2 AM. this is both offensively long and unbelievably meandering and dull for being "handpicked." if i think too long about how many live albums are in this damn book i get legitimately hot and sweaty with rage. say it with me: LIVE. ALBUMS. ARE. THE. PURVIEW. OF. SUPERFANS. why is a member of the average public having this forced upon them? i can think of no more unwilling audience for a live album than anyone but their fans. especially not this rambling incoherent sensory nightmare that felt like it lasted 45 years.

the grateful dead feels like a massive prank that the boomers have played on the younger generations. every time i hear a grateful dead song i think, no way does anyone actually enjoy this music for real... there's just nothing there. no soul, no substance, and the band can't even decide on the same song to play. everyone's noodling around on their instruments and not particularly well. it feels like i'm standing in the middle of a guitar center while middle schoolers holding their first guitar try to play smoke on the water and iron man. after 400 or so albums, i think this is my first one-star review going to a band or artist who isn't a sexual predator. congrats, grateful dead. you did it. "favorites": st. stephen and the eleven both had sections that were interesting

Chill and easy listening, though some of the songs meandered on too long. 3.5/5

I enjoyed everything but the feedback session.

This is good dead, but not great dead.

I never liked the vocals of the Dead. They make songs sound like nursery rhymes than anything else. ("St. Stephen," for example.) Still, their jams are effective. "Dark Star" reminds me a bit of Pink Floyd's "Echoes". I thought "Eleven" was pretty cool too. But things like "Turn On Your Lovelight" I could have done without. It just felt like a riff that went on and on. "Feedback"... I don't know if they could possibly reproduce this on stage WELL. It obviously would sound different each time. Still, it was interesting they kept it in. "Dark Star" and "Eleven" were probably the two I enjoyed the most, but that was half of the album. The rest... meh.

Never been a fan of the Dead, never quite got what all the hype was about. But then I never really got into Phish either. I do understand from this album how creative they were, and fairly talented, with all their jamming and improvisation. Yeah, it can go on a little long but I still marveled a bit. Feedback was the biggest slog to listen to given the piercing instrumentals - but I do give them props for making it sound exactly like feedback (or nails on a chalkboard)...for 8mins. Wow. I don't know that I'll go back to this album much but I do think I will tell others about it, just for the unique experience.

dull dull dull

Enjoyed the record more than I thought I would, perfect for headphones on the couch

Excellent guitar

I hope I never hear another Dead song in my life. Hate them damn tie dye shirts too. 491 albums in and this ranks as one of the worst. Negative score.

1 New year, same old Grateful Dead BS. The second I saw that this consists of seven songs in 73 minutes, I knew this was going to be grueling. I’ll give it this, compared to American Beauty, this isn’t so much country music for hippies as it is jam rock for hippies which, honestly, is actually much more in line with what I expected from The Grateful Dead - and I mean that in the worst possible way. Like, imagine paying money to go to this show just to watch a dude pluck at a guitar for like 30 minutes straight. I guess that must be why the group is associated with psychedelic drugs because I couldn’t imagine making it through this sober. Fortunately, once you make it through the borderline painful slog that is Dark Star (admittedly easier said than done), the series of songs that follow have a bit more musicality to them, but man, those runtimes don’t get much shorter. There’s just not really a ton interesting going to justify the lengths anywhere here - even if you’re able to derive an enjoyable moment out of any given track, the feeling is long gone by the time those 15 minutes are up. I will say, I did get a bit of a kick out of hearing Turn on Your Love Light, but that was mostly because I’m familiar with the song in the form of The Blues Brothers’ cover from the 2000 film - say what you want about the movie, but its corresponding soundtrack is much better than anything you can find here (shoutout to Will for letting me rip that CD like a decade ago). Besides, anything positive I have to say about the track (or anything else here for that matter) is completely counterbalanced by the fact that these guys made me listen to feedback for 8 minutes straight at the end (which equates to roughly 11% of your total listening if you’re curious). In summary, these guys suck. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again - I’m totally willing to concede that maybe I just need to see the band live and/or be on acid to “get it”, but there’s nothing I’ve heard from the group at this point that makes me feel particularly incentivized to try it out.

Maybe I wasn't stoned enough.

This was one of the most painful listens on this list (so far)! not because the music made my ears bleed or the songs were bad, it's just the endless improvisational guitar noodling and unstructured "songs" were boring, repetitious and down-right ridiculous. I should have stopped during the opening track, Dark Star which went on way too long, well over 20 minutes. Time better spent doing laundry, filing my taxes or doing my Christmas shopping. Holy smokes, if I was in the crowd during this song I would have been snoozing or taking the time for a long bathroom break. How much drugs do you have to take to enjoy the Grateful Dead? There is no punchline, just an overdose.

First song 24 mins of no thanks. Acid was wasted on the boomers.

Sure makes me wish I was dead

Too depressed to get into this album

I respect them but don’t love their music. Pretty cool how this album was recorded live for the first time using a splitter between the PA and the recording equipment though

There are a few Grateful Dead songs that I appreciate, like 'Terrapin Station' for example. Other than that I haven't listened to them that much. Grateful Dead have quite the fanbase and cult following, and if I understood it correctly it's much due to their live shows. I have to say that I don't really see it in this record to be honest. I think jamming and noodling, when done correctly, can be really thrilling live, but it just doesn't lend itself that well for a studio record in this case. There are also a few quite long segments that just doesn't work at all for me, like 'Feeback' for example. In the end I end up a bit disappointed in this, resulting in a 2 star rating.

I'm really not a fan of jam bands and jam albums, this was no exception. Any one part of the album is quite good but the endless jamming is just not for me. I see why people like it though.

I can't get excited about this. I have tried the Grateful Dead several times throughout my life, and now again as the 921st album on this list as well as the second of the Grateful Dead. But for me, it remains a directionless album with messy music and substandard vocals. I still don't understand how this became such a household name in counter-culture.

Definitely not what I thought Grateful Dead would sound like. Got deja vu that I’ve said that before. Anyway, this wasn’t terrrible for a live album (which I largely avoid) but it was terrible from a general music point of view. God I was bored senseless with this.

Love the Dead. One of the most influential bands of my life. This is an album that would probably not turn someone onto them. “Lovelight” is an amazing song, and “St. Stephen” is fantastic, but “Feedback” is kind of rough. They get so much better in the next year. 4/5 Will listen again. RIP Phil

Heavy instrumentation, a mess, a thing I like. However it's a bit too long...I still like it though.

I'm not big on jam bands like this.

Well, it's better than American Beauty at least. Still wouldn't personally base my entire personality around following these guys in a Scooby Doo van, but more power to you, 70s America. Better jam bands out there.

Okay, I thought this band was supposed to be entertaining? But it was a 23 minute song of noodling.

This is so boring. I didn't finish it :< Giving it 2 because it seems like they're good at what they're doing but it is not Pleasant To Listen To

Nope

Quite enjoyable

I have very little patience to witness in the unfolding of time the development of matter that becomes a seed, which seems unstructured outside of its shell, that with rain, sunlight, other nutrients and microscopic miracles grows into a plant that in the beginning is so soft, so noodly, it appears to take an entire season or more to grow strong enough to support the bearing of colorful fruits in myriad sizes that are then allowed to grow ripe and somehow do not seem to get utilized by the fauna of the ecosystem but instead remain a little too long past their prime to ultimately be plucked by a free-spirited patchouli wearing human, carried miles home on the wind to the magic bus only to be made into a jam for others in a merry band. I need more focus and pace in my music. If you've made it this far in my purposefully meandering review, trying to evoke the vibe of the album, then maybe you already have a higher tolerance than I do. But if you've seen hippies dance ecstatic and bare of foot for hours in the rain only to wonder how or if you'd ever be on the inside of that inscrutable experience then you might understand why I can't give this album more than 1 star despite the Dead's legendary status and the fact that there are some shining moments, scattered like seeds, within.

I'm a middling Dead fan, and this was kind of a struggle to get through. Starting off with a whole side of Black Star was a strange choice - a few minutes in, and still wondering when the song was going to start. The recording quality left much to be desired. I prefer some of their later-70's live recordings, where there seemed to be a lot less self-indulgence and vague wandering.

Seeing the very bad rates, I guess I'm in a contrarian streak because I liked it. I mean, for me grateful dead was bad dad country rock but this album was nothing like that, so yeah, I liked it.

Excellent album with great guitar work. No real songs per se, but great jams

Ah yes, Grateful Dead. A band I've heard so much about but have never actually listened to. And by the sounds of it, this live 'Live/Dead' album was a great place to start. For as much as I enjoyed this though, I don't have much to say about the songs individually. They were fun to space out to, starting from the very jammy, improvisational, jazzy, and sparkling cut 'Dark Start'. The song 'The Eleven' was probably the best fusion of relentless jamming and catchiness - I love the vocals that come in alongside that killer riff 3/4th of the way through. The bass tone here also sounds super fat, likely as a result of the live nature of the recording, which goes over fairly well for the majority of this album. The best bassline though has to be the jovial one driving the following 'Turn on Your Love Light', it's so fun and familial. I love the way this particular track ramps up in its final couple minutes with the riffy-vocals coming to a head alongside these building drums patterns. I don't know how to feel about the closing 'Feedback' - it certainly lives up to the title and there are some hints of direction and melody here, but ultimately you are just getting a bunch of noise for like...7 minutes. Hey, I guess it's ahead of its time, even proto-done in its final minutes or so. I really had no idea what to expect from this band - but this long, satisfying, jammy live album was exactly what I needed to unwind tonight. I think I really like this band, though maybe I'll need to listen to some of their studio records before reaching that conclusion.

Startet mit einem anstrengend langem (24 Min.) Song “Dark Star” und verlangt damit dem Zuhörer schon viel ab - aber es lohnt sich nicht die Skip-Taste zu drücken. Auch die übrigen Songs sind länger und sehr tiefgründig. Ein bisschen Door‘s („Death Don’t“)ein bisschen Lärmbelästigung („Feedback“). Alles in allem eine recht durchschnittliche Platte.

It took me three weeks to get through this album

I’ve been listening to shakedown street for 3 days and they just got the end of the first verse…..

Bunch of noodling and nonsense

Live albums should not be included on the list. GD is perhaps an exception as their songs are live so different etc. This album was ok.

This is a quite unique live performance, I assume, so I can see why it is on the list. Some thorough jamming going on.

It shouldn't be understated the impact that Grateful Dead has had on the music industry. People love them, and people also hate them. But their model for creating and marketing themselves was something that had not been done until that point, and has yet to be replicated since. At least not on the scale at which they were running it. They are the most prime example of a work horse band. Fans of the group do not go around praising their work because of the studio recordings. It's the live recordings. The hundreds of hours there are of them, too. People made it their lives to follow the band around the country and catch every show. A feat which is near impossible now considering ticket prices. It begs the argument of whether we can really consider the Grateful Dead more of a band than a subculture or movement. Deadheads are rampant, and their "culture" has even invaded my own life. I own tie-dye Dead shirts that | never wear, and I got a Rolling Stone magazine about the band from my grandfather that I haven't read one page of. Yet I have never heard their music. I've actually attempted to check them out in the past though. But I just found it far too difficult. When a band has multiple series, spanning over 20 volumes each, of just live recordings, which are each one to two hours in length, I get overwhelmed. I actually like jam bands too. My favorite band ever is considered by many to be one. And the whole jam band thing really was the appeal of this band. Each night you could expect something new. I'm willing to admit that I admire this ability, and I know it's not something easy. To go on stage every night and play in a manner where you aren't sure what's coming next from either your band mates nor yourself is impressive. This was their first like album ever, and that chemistry between the members is definitely present. Their skill to take something like Dark Star, which is as short as 2 minutes, and expand it out to nearly 6 times its own length is wild. But especially considering how long this is, after a certain point I zoned out, and what I was hearing became background noise. I think that first song is really cool and engaging, but it is by and large the most interesting thing this album has to offer. Rating: 5/10

The middle songs were alright. But it all sounded too long and too boring. Why is there a 8 min feedback song....

My initial thought seeing this album: "damn it, this is going to be a two hour long dad-rock jam session, isn't it?" I was almost spot on. This has to be one of the most bloated and uninteresting records in here. A misguided mess, guised as the pinnacle of "improvisation". All they did was stop playing the cohesive sections of their songs that they rehearsed them let the guitarist diddle around a bit every time. This is the epitome of an album that should NOT be on this list. I was hoping for it to be over the minute it started, what a waste of my time. 0/5

I love the Dead, but I’ve never really been too interested in their meandering live jams. Maybe that keeps me on the square side of the Deadhead line, but I’ll own that. I’d always skipped this one because I didn’t want to sit through Dark Star and knew I’d heard most of the rest elsewhere at other points, but I’m glad I finally gave it a spin. I still don’t love the Dark Starry jams, but I have a lot more appreciation for the no holds barred declaration of freedom that it implies these days.

Ikävä laulu + Musiikki, mutta objektivistin tuska kolmonen..

Live/Dead, then. First track starts nicely enough, but seventeen minutes later it's still going. It's so far all over the place that there are obviously and naturally good parts and bad parts but it's so fucking long and it's prog dressed up as rock and it's another example of overindulgence not delivering quality. Gets a 2 for the listenable parts but this isn't music to be encouraged imo.

Not really for me, this. Far too long (a 23 minute first track!!!) and self-indulgent - I don't mind something going on a bit if it really has something to say, but none of these tracks really do, although a few of them do have the odd good bit. 2/5, far too bloated.

I guess you had to be there? Best Tracks: St. Stephen; The Eleven; Turn On Your Love Light

Pretty great, both music and the cover

Very jammy. Enjoyable throughout. Makes me want to go re-listen to the live Allman Brothers album, which I thought was a much greater blues jammy album. Torn between 3 and 4. I’ve given 3’s to albums I like more than this but also given 4’s to albums I like less than this

Aimless noodling. When they get around to actually playing a song, it's generally good - but unless you've got a spliff on the go, this album is completely pointless.

Not the biggest jam band fan here but some of this is actually not bad.

Absolutely not.

By the end of this album I was glad just to have the ringing of tinnitis in my ears. 1 star or F.

Not for me, but I can see why others dig it.

Different to what I thought, expected more psychedelic, weird sound. Definitely rooted in pysch, but I always thought theyd be much weirder. Did quite enjoy it though, long jamming riffs with The Doors’ keyboard. Lots of improv going on, worked canny. Probably give these another go

Never heard the grateful dead before but they have such a huge reputation, well known for being trippy in all senses but also strong musically I thought. That's despite them getting basically no airtime but I figured the drugs were to blame for that. It is psychedelic but more than often than not it's all over the place to the point of shambolic. The couple of more sensible tracks are alright, a bit doorsy, but dark star in particular is 4 people playing separate sections of incoherent nonsense. It's almost experimental jazz but it's clearly not intentionally like that. I doubt anything sounded like this back then so probably hugely influential on the bands that made this sound coherent. It's a live album too where I imagine they are at their craziest. But I sincerely doubt I'm dead head.

Not really what I expected. Hadn't listened to the Grateful Dead before, presumed they were early psychedelic/hard rock. It is just a bit boring and middling. I didn't mind it live (it certainly sounded live, not always in harmony). A bit disappointed.

I've been meaning to give the grateful dead a listen for ages so was glad this came up. Not sure a live album is the best place to start though.... All style no substance comes to mind. So meandering. Kept imagining myself at these gigs and just standing around listening to these solos wanting something to happen! There were bits and pieces that I thought were good though and I hope there is a studio album on the list to really see what they're like. Heard a lot of good things about them.

I found out something listening to this album, I like The Grateful Dead's studio albums but I find their live stuff enjoyable for the first couple of minutes and then I get bored. Their is probably nothing wrong with this album, musically it's great but just for me it's meandering and boring

A lot of this feels like floating. The live tracks stretch and bend, with loose, jazzy improvisation. It kind of feels like early Santana but slower, with more room to breathe. There are moments where it drifts too much, though. It’s good for background, but it’s easy to lose focus on.

If I had a time machine I would travel back to the late 60's and be a Deadhead. A surefire way to get rid of the upright squares is to open your gig with a 20 minute banger. I still miss Jerry.

“Turn On Your Love Light” & drop out. Dead live is a perfect recorded example of the times. Groovy.

I guess they need to include some Dead on here, just not sure how this was the choice. It punctuates why people don't like them and doesn't go deep enough into how good they really are.

Songs are good at first but go on too long, must be in the mood

Ok, this is pretty cool, love the vibe. Really liked Dark Star, didn't really dig Turn on Your Love Light but still giving it a 5.

Liked this a lot more than "American Beauty" - some sections of the jams were a definite bop. Probably coulda done without the bluesy number, but otherwise, yeah, I guess I can see more why they gained the cult following they did. Fave tracks - chunks of "Dark Star" were great. "The Eleven" was cool too...

A bit long.

It's ultimately a pretty boring album. I can understand why their shows were primarily enjoyed by people "enhancing" the experience.

I always forget that grateful dead are some wee hippies instead of original punks. This was fine fir what it was, just distorted self indulgence, not something I’d listen to again though.

joa, kann man mal reinhören, ist aber nix für dauerhaft; für damals vermutlich sehr fortschrittlich

Do they have monitors or are they just playing along with what they *think* the other guys are playing? Feedback almost made me drive off a bridge.

An excellent live album.

20 minute opening jam track. I wasn’t very interested by what I heard in this live performance. Maybe I didn’t pay enough attention to it. Not a bad album. I did like the ending song. It was like a short campfire song. Standouts: St. Stephen and Turn on Your Love Light.

This is akin to jazz for me - I can appreciate (and marvel!) At the ability to improvise for so long as a group. That's just so crazy to me, since I can barely get through playing a whole song even when I have the music in front of me. As cool as that is, it just isn't something I want to listen to. 2/5

If this was my first foray into the world of The Dead, then I wouldn't like them at all either. The truth is that at this point they were still trying to figure out their live presence. And I don't care how legendary the Fillmore West venue is, the production quality of this album sucks. There wasn't anything like a Grateful Dead concert. While true, in this case, that assertion isn't a good thing. Go listen to Europe '72 and see if that doesn't make you want to join the party.

Great album to just vibe out and chill to.

Me gusta el blues!! Pero... Esto es apuñalar al blues y mearse en su cadaver. Hay canciones que no tiene melodia, van a su bola cada uno de los artistas, y en la cancion the eleven me sobran los 11, el ruido, que no musica, de esa cancion es digno de rallar las uñas en la pizarra y rechinar dientes Voy a dejar los auriculares en la papelera para reciclar la basura que he escuchado. 10/10 🤙🏽

I wanna say I loved it, but I listened to it early in the morning and I was definitely not 100% in the mood for it.

This live album opens with what sounds like a band tuning up at a sound check, then bit by bit they all start noodling around a theme, someone randomly starts singing and before you know it twenty minutes have passed. I always thought that the Grateful Dead were a rock band, but this is closer to free jazz with extended improvisations. I can see the attraction of following them around to listen to this while getting stoned in a field somewhere. Hippytastic!

These guys can jam.

skillful noodles, fun, weird, but not really my shit

It's ok. It does meander quite a bit, but there are times where things really come in to focus. People compare it to a conversation, but I'd liken it to getting high (seems apt for the dead). For a large portion, you're just wandering around, feeling a bit strange, experiencing new sensations. But then, briefly, your soul is lifted up from the body. A transcendental experience. Of course, the focused moments never reach a height like that, but I believe that's what they were going for. The noodling really accentuates the good bits. Also, feedback is really cool, but I'm a fan of noise. Much cooler than the first track. Maybe the album would've been better if they started there.

A bit too much jamming for me

I've never listened to a Grateful Dead album before this. I quite enjoyed it.

I already listened to this, it sucks.

You had to be there live, I wasn’t. That was about an hour of five or six stoners tuning their instruments and singing off key. Or maybe the drugs in 69 were just so strong that any noise (including Feedback)sounded like music. Rough one (1.6*s)

I knew there'd be some Grateful Dead on this list and I went in with open ears since Jon has been to some shows. I can def appreciate the improv-jam format but I think other people/groups/bands are doing it better. The Dead's formula seems almost too easy and this album felt a bit limp and maybe even phoned in. How were these the best takes from so many different concerts? It completely lost me on "Feedback" and I only reconfirmed what I already thought. Meh.

I can see myself in the 60s, at a Dead concert sprawled out on a blanket smoking weed and drinking beer. If I'm not in that exact scene though, I'm not that into it. The band doesn't really make separate songs...they just jam. It's impossible to have the same concert repeated by these guys cause the songs are sooooo long and improved. Probably why Dead Heads would travel with them and get a different show every time. When they start playing "Feedback", that's your cue to leave. Knew they would get an album on the list for shear fan following...1.75.

I'm not the biggest Grateful Dead fan (more of a Phish phan) but recognize their place in music history. Jam bands aren't everybody's cup of tea but I've always passively enjoyed them. While I don't necessarily think that Live/Dead specifically is a strong album it's a pretty solid example of what to expect from a jam band show. Even if it isn't in your wheelhouse, I do think you need to get exposed to a jam band at some point before you die (even if it's just to confirm it's not your thing). Jam bands are a whole vibe with their own culture and identity that goes beyond the music. I can take or leave Grateful Dead but I throw on Phish more often than I think most people expect. I can't outright recommend Live / Dead but overall I'd say this album belongs on the list. There is plenty better you can do, but plenty worse you can do from this list. 1.91 stars