Live / Dead

Listening to this was less fun than walking through your house in the dead of night in just your stockinged feet and stepping in a pool of congealed semen, whilst knowing both that you are the only male in the house and that you haven’t spunked up in weeks. Nearly six minutes of “artistic” feedback close this album. This basket of bastards do not have the chops, imagination, rhythmic cohesion, or charisma to pull any of this shite off. If you like this album I don’t like you, and I think someone should probably be checking your hard drive. (Just to avoid any confusion, this album is entirely shit, start to finish - and there is a fucking long wait between those two points. One of the worst albums I’ve had to listen to in my life).

Strange voodoo magic envelops not only this record, but my encounter with it on this list. I listened to my copy of this album full through last night. Even listened to the Dark Star twice. No idea why I pulled it to be played last night, cosmic energy must've wanted it in my ears. You must then understand my shock when it was my record for today. Astronomical odds to the point it is freaky. Love ya Jerry. The music itself transends most understanding and comprehension. The jamming here is on a different level my friends. If this is your introduction to the Dead, don't be alarmed. Having this as your introduction to the Grateful Dead is like losing your virginity to a Russian dominatrix prostitute. This is HEADY stuff. Dark Star alone is a complete journey through space and time. The best Dark Star they ever played most likely. Rest of the album shows the wide variety of what you would experience at a late 60s dead show. Stephen, Eleven, Lovelight, Death Don't, and a Bid you Good night to send you away. Be glad your ears experienced this masterclass during your brief lifetime here on earth. In a great way. If you like this style of Dead jamming, you are probably a super cool person and I would like to get to know ya. So glad this album made the list. One of the top live albums ever released. 10/10

What a bunch of stupid, pointless bullshit. When all the people who like your music have lobotomized themselves with drugs, I suppose you can get away with being this lazy but that still doesn't excuse it. Fuck this.

I'm sure it would be better to experience live. There are a few things I couldn't get past. At some point they invited a strangled-cat guitar tone and Feedback is just terrible.

This is what the Dead do best.

Not my music

Too long

Primal Dead at its best.

One song was a real banger

Ass. Live recording of people just fucking around on their instruments. Special shout out to Feedback for being annoying as fuck

I want to like the Dead so much. Just not a fan of this jam band music, especially recorded like this. It has to be better live. It's still great background music though. 2.5/5

There is nothing quite like a 26 minute Dark Star. And if you've never seen it live or allowed yourself to really get into it, it will sound like noise and confusion. Dark Star took a long time for me to really grasp, but after 3 or 4 D&C shows, I loved and hoped and looked forward to a Dark Star. The ethereal spacey jam that kind of just goes in weird places. Its space and jazz and rock. My love for this band is well established. I'm a committed Dead Head at this point. There's never been a band that changed the way I listen to music and approach music in the same ways Grateful Dead. I usually gravitate to live stuff from the 90s. Better recording quality, more dialed band, but there really isn't anything quite like 1969 Grateful Dead. Its weird and wild in a way that really hadn't been explored yet. It really is organized chaos in the most beautiful way possible. I love how it fades into St. Stephen before really ramping up. The psych bluesy country rock sound of St. Stephen makes for one of the most perfect GD songs. It kind of has everything that you want. Its vibey, bluesy, rock, weird and spacey. St. Stephen > The Eleven is so good, and then when it flows into Turn on Your Love Light is perfect! Man, having seen them do this live, is just so magic. Also, fun to hear Pig Pen sing. The Death Don't Have No Mercy is so freakin good. Its such a sneaky GD gem. Meg kind of turned me onto a few years ago with Bobby singing it, which I think I might prefer Bobby's old man voice singing it. But Jerry is really doing something spooky here. I'm loving it. Feedback is basically Space and something that I almost always skip, but I learned to love at The Sphere shows. Skipped after 5 minutes. And We Bid You Goodnight is one of my all time favorite encores. I love it. I love the nod to bluegrass and gospel music. Jerry loved that shit. I sing that song to Goldie to go to sleep very often. This wasn't as much of a review, because I'm biased and just love this band. To any detractors or people that don't get it: I understand you, but once you "get it" its magical.

I actually thought, fuck, I’m forced to listen to these hippies. And I also thought, I may become a fan. I can handle the jammy stuff for the most part and believe me, there’s lots of it here. The singing though and the lyrics? Ugh Mind you, when they slow things down, I can get behind it. Like Death don’t Have No Mercy. But it’s poor singing over jammy music when it all comes down to it. Not a ground breaking album.

638/1089 - I hate "vibey" "jammy" music. Please get to the point and quit whacking off on stage please.

behead these twiddling hippies please

Whilst the opener was an impressive experience that pulled and rose and proved some top talents, I grew more bored of it as the album went on, and the feedback track near the end brought a 3 into a solid 2 territory.

The Dead are… well, let's put it this way, the people I have known who have been really into the Dead have been some of the dumbest, dullest, and weirdly bigoted people I've come across. The last part probably is an anomaly, but the first bits check out. These are people whose entire musical taste revolves around meandering, interminable solos and lots and lots of drugs (only one of the two biggest deadheads I've known actually did any drugs, but his entire concept of music was the dead and phish and other identical jam bands). It's music for people who won't listen to a new band but sure as hell will listen to a hundred versions of China Cat Sunflower as if they're all rare diamonds. And I guess I get that. Like, let's start with Dark Star here. It's 23 minutes of noodling, but the full pot of pasta is the better bit. When the vocals come mewling in some 5-6 minutes later, it is weak and forgettable. Bread soaked in mild tea comes to mind, almost synesthetically. It's not that the surrounding guitar doesn't feel like 20 drug addicts bumbling around in the dark (and why wouldn't it sound like exactly what it is?), but you sort of see that yeah, of course, no one is listening to Dark Star because it's a good song, they're listening to Dark Star for the intolerable long guitar fiddling. After 23 minutes, anything would feel like a blessed relief, so St Stephen feels like a blessed relief. For starters, it has a riff. For two, it has a melody. And for three, it is a song. The riff itself is fine. The lyrics are pretty standard “we are not taking this particularly seriously” hippy lyricism. But it's a break soon sullied by the fact that two more songs follow, songs that end up being just extended vamps. The guitar isn't really compelling, the lyrics remain babbling. I can appreciate that “the eleven” is in 11, but I just expect more. For a band lauded as a live band, it is embarrassing how dull this is. It's like the predecessor to Sublime saying “i can play the guitar like a motherfucking riot” and then playing a pedestrian solo. Oh, they do crazy stuff live? Crazy stuff like recording seven minutes of feedback? This album is a document that sometimes “you gotta see them live” is about the atmosphere and not about the music. ⭐️⭐️

Noise

Recorder with a 16-band recorder. The latest in technology you can get at that time.

I really do enjoy the idea behind this album as well, similar to the one before. I enjoy hearing the Grateful Dead music here and there, learning about their history and culture, but I think it would be a better experience if I actually experienced it live, probably under the influence. If the songs were even a little bit shorter, I think I would give it more than a two.

The Dead truly shine with their live recordings. Awesome jams but man they’re some songs (yes I’m looking at you Feedback) that hold this album back from being great

The instrumentals were great! Except for Feedback, that was painful. The songs with vocals weren't that great.

Enjoyment: 5/10 Replayability: 4/10 Cohesion: 6/10 Flow/Pacing: 5/10 Artistic Merit: 4/10 Weighted Average: 4.75/10 Review: This sounds like "Guitar Noodling: The Album". It's 23 minute introduction was a bit of a slog, but the melody was pleasant for the most part. Their vocals and harmony are nothing to write home about and it was smooth sailing until I heard the feedback in Feedback. Liked Song(s): St. Stephen, Death Don't Have No Mercy Disliked Song(s): Dark Star, Feedback Recommend? Maybe Heard Before? No

Just noodles 👎 I'm not even anti-jamband (gave Allman Brothers live album 5 stars). It really sounds like they're all just aimlessly noodling with no consideration given to phrasing, emotion or making it interesting. No amount of mushrooms could make me like this.

Self indulgent hippy claptrap. Lucky to get a second star.

I’m not into jam band music or the Dead really at all, but I’m glad it exists!

Jam bands aren't for me, I need more of a structure to my music. These guys are undeniably talented though.

1001 albums! Sure, I know there’s a handful left, so this isn’t TECHNICALLY my last album, but I want to commemorate it as an accomplishment. And really, what a great example of how weird this list is. This is easily bottom 5 albums I’ve had to listen to for this project, sincerely fighting for #1. People go on and on and on about how the studio recordings of The Dead don’t do them justice. “Oh, they were never captured well in the studio, you gotta see them LIVE, man!!” And then here’s a live album, and it’s genuinely one of the worst things I’ve ever heard in my life? I would rather listen to the studio recorded Dead albums! There are some really nice songs on those!! Firstly, I don’t hate jam bands. Well, I do, but I usually can see why some people like them and can see that they’re technically proficient with their instruments. Phish, for example. I don’t want to see them, but from what I’ve heard, their jams make sense. The first, TWENTY FOUR MINUTE, track on this album is all members of the band noodling badly. They play bum notes, they play out of tune, they drop in and out whenever they wanna; there’s no moments of sweet synchronicity or musical release. It’s just ponderous, amateur instrument playing. Like a middle school band warming up. It’s truly hellish, but somehow not the worst track on this album. Because when I saw a seven- minute (the shortest song on the album) track entitled “Feedback,” I whispered to myself, “Surely this can’t just be sounds of feedback for seven minutes, right?” Well, friends, guess how my 1001st album ended? 7 minutes of Jerry Garcia’s guitar feedback. There’s nothing technically interesting about that, or skillful. It’s just bullshit. Fuck the Dead, fuck this album, here’s to 80 more of these fucking albums, may the actual last album not be as bad as this!

Grateful Dead – Live/Dead (1969) On Day 290, this live document delivered a genuinely surprising and transcendent milestone listen. While the vocals occasionally wobbled, the sheer instrumentation and collective musicianship were off the charts. Across sprawling epic centerpieces like "Dark Star" and the complex rhythms of "The Eleven," the band tapped into an incredible telepathic groove, the guitars soared into an effortless zone, perfectly layered within a remarkably clean, dynamic live mix. The tracklist balanced cosmic exploration with gritty roots, highlighted by the high-energy soul revival of "Turn On Your Love Light" and a deeply moving, mournful blues performance on "Death Don't Have No Mercy." The screeching drone of "Feedback" and the ragged a cappella coda "And We Bid You Goodnight" felt somewhat disposable, but the core musical journey is nothing short of breathtaking. A monumental live triumph. A definitive 5/5.

What humourless, ponderous nonsense is this? Call me a living ingrate.

Unashamed Dead Head. It’s rock n roll played like jazz. Opening with a 23 minute dark star is crazy. This St Stephen is HOT plus a rare appearance of The Eleven. Always love a Pigpen era Love Light.

1*

Some nice things here and there

Listening to this album helped convince me that my days as a jam band fan are well behind me. I'm too sober, too old (early 30s, lol) and too "not actually in the live audience" to fully appreciate the endless guitar solos and droning choruses. Then again, I went out to a jam the evening after listening to this, and had a fun discussion with a mega Dead fan about how this album encompasses some of the best aspects of the band's formation and early years. Idk, maybe I'm just bitter and need to give it another chance. Sticking with a 3/5 for the time being. TIL this is the first live rock album to use 16-track recording. That's pretty neat at least.

Decent rock album. Playing was good. Singing was tolerable. None of tracks really impressed. A lot of the tracks were jam sessions which made them feel meandering. The track "Feedback" was almost painful to listen to and left me with a bitter final impression of the album.

Nobody sober could endure this.

At the start I was bang into this but it kind of lost interest a bit towards the end. Has such range and great ideas but maybe a bit slightly too American.

oh to be like 20 in 1969 in san francisco and sooo high on shrooms

# I get the Dead when it comes to studio albums. You get to hear the songs as originally created. Live Dead is a completely different animal and I think this applies to a lot of jam bands. I thought the songs were their pre-show warm up/ sound check. I just felt like meandering instruments. I don’t get how people aren’t bored to death live. I mean I get being a masterful musician ; that’s all well and good. I also get it’s not just about the music when live. There are other elements like the social experience but damn its hard to get through this unless you are in an altered state

Live albums aren’t my favorite—there are a few exceptions. This one was just okay. I don’t hate The Dead, but most of these songs just dragged on. 2.5

You know, the dead actually slap. This is just an odd album, and overly jammy. Some people like the weird jams from them, I much prefer their studio outputs. Side 1 starts off great, it becomes a literal slop slog afterwards. Honestly, this is the kinda music they put out that made it difficult for me to get into them initially. They have some slept on shit, you just gotta find it. This, unfortunately ain’t it for me.

All my favorite artists literally pulled straight from this. This is so Cindy Lee, shoe gaze even contemporaries like Pink Floyd. It’s so long but a great live album experience perfect for riding to and from the beach

Really dull. This was what all that fuss was about? I don’t get it.

Учитывая, что Grateful Dead это совсем не та музыка, которую я люблю, а также моё скверное отношение к live-альбомам, я склонен не согласиться с негативными оценками большинства. Если поставить этот альбом на фон, то в какой-то момент музыка начинает создавать магическую ауру. Ну и было интересно послушать, за чем следовали сотни людей. Мне кажется, что вся проблема, в том, что в записи это звучит совсем не так эффектно, как вживую. Лучшая песня: Death Don`t Have No Mercy

The best the Dead ever got which is still only okay. For superior vocal renditions of “Turn on Your Light” and “Death Don’t Have No Mercy” check out Bobby Bland and Mark Lanegan, respectively.

Den är bra! En annan dag hade det blivit en 4:a. Rätt mood är nödvändigt, för det blir aningen introspektivt ibland.

I'm a sucker for good live albums, so when i hear Grateful dead or the greatest live band of all time, i was pretty excited... the verdict? well..... I Gotta be honest, it dragged for a long time. I tried to imagine myself as some stoned hippie in the 60s trying to endure an hour long concert of this and.....? Yeah, no thanks. Cool album cover though 2/5

While I appreciate a good jam once in a while, I can't see myself listening to this intentionally, just not enough structure/hooks to bring me back.

*Has some nice grooves but Feedback is very strange

It gets one star for being the first at something. The other four are on hold until I hear music that has a bit of substance to it

While I do find “Dark Star” to be a weird choice of an opening, this was a great musical journey, albeit with a bump toward the end in the form of “Feedback”. (I’ve always been a Brent guy, which probably explains my aversion to those tracks - I don’t really like “Drums/Space” all that much either). Captures the Pigpen/“Acid Test” era of the band very well.

Good band. Good album.

нет

Something this project is making abundantly clear is that I am not a jam band guy. Improvisation and stream of consciousness is fine for rehearsals and even live shows, but for actual albums, I’m not interested. Yes, popular music is overly wedded to the 3-4 minutes verse-chorus-verse-bridge-verse-chorus format. But the answer is not to meander with no sense of purpose or coherence for 20 minutes. Artificially imposed constraints can be good for art, actually.

분위기는 꽤 나쁘지 않았지만 전체적으로 평범한 느낌이었다. The atmosphere wasn't bad at all, but overall, it felt rather ordinary.

My brother got all of the Grateful Dead genes in my family. All of them. Nothing left for me. The “singing” voices are just plain awful. And the rest is just endless masturbatory noodling.

I wish I was a big fan of the Grateful Dead as there is so many albums to explore and after that all those Dick Pics sorry I mean Dicks Picks and many many more Bootlegs. It would be never ending. Unfortunately I am not a huge fan. Yes it is OK and I’m a fan of the occasional live extended jam or wig out but the key is occasional. I don’t want every one of my 3 minute songs turned into 15 minute extravaganzas. Maybe those Dicks Picks would grow on me with extended exposure but to be honest life’s too short

Kinda liked it long first song with no lyrics. Think I got the cult following aspect

DNF. Can understand the artistic vision and appeal but wasn’t totally for me.

I have never understood the appeal of the live version of the Dead. To me, this, and really all improvised jamming, is boring as hell. The nonstop guitar noodling on a song like "Dark Star" (unrecognizable from the studio version) does absolutely nothing for me. The rest of this was much better but I still found myself tuning out. It's more my issue as I am fond of melody, hooks, and actual song structure. Those are not the things you look for at a Dead concert. So my rating reflects that while acknowledging how great these guys were at what they did.

It's funny getting this after a prog album because on the surface a lot of the same criticisms could be levelled at the Dead, with the way too long songs and obtuse lyrics. But where I feel like prog acts are showoffy and too tight and controlled, jam bands are all about freedom and looseness and building something together. It leads to songs that sometimes sound like shit (parts of Darkstar here) and sometimes sound like a tower to the stars (The Eleven). I don't have the stamina to explore all 600 versions of Scarlet Begonias like the deadheads but I do get the appeal, especially in the context of the era. Wasn't expecting to hear the groove of the fantastic Treme theme song on Turn On Your Love Light too, that was fun

Listened

Más allá de que sea en vivo, no pueden durar 10 minutos en promedio cada “tema”. Poco dinámico para escuchar

Honestly I never got the Greatful Dead.

I like prog, so a 23 minute track isn't a problem for me, but this sounds like a lot of random playing instead of being coherent. It does sound good at times, but for the most part, it's insufferable.

Listens: 2 (and many others) Standout tracks: Dark Star, St. Steven I am a very new to the scene "Dead Head". I basically knew nothing about the GD save for a few tracks prior to 2022, but dove head first into their entire studio and live catalog available on YTM over the course of the past few years. I am no stranger to Live/Dead. My father has it on Vinyl, and I like them so much I also bought it, Europe 72 and Nightfall of Diamonds. Needless to say, I love this album, but I am also not sure it's a good intro for people who might not already be familiar with the Dead. Dark Star is a tough opener. Its pretty "out there" and "free-form". It doesn't really kick in until about 1:30 into the song, but then it's off to the races. And then towards the end, again Feedback is also really free-form. If you're not expecting and aware how of the Grateful Dead do things, this just sounds like noise. It mostly is and that's the point of their flavor of psychedelic rock. The middle is where it's at though. St. Steven, The Eleven and Turn on Your Love Light are epic tracks.

Es Como música trance pero con instrumentos de cuerda y organillos en vez de sintetizadores

It was a really good album. The songs were a bit longer. It was very psychedelic and had instrumental improvisations that could last for 10 minutes. It was one of the best Grateful Dead albums in my opinion!

I went in with an open mind, I don’t mind a 20 song if it’s interesting unfortunately this wasn’t. The Grateful Dead is not for me I feel.

te veel gejengel

Klinkt als een hele lange soundcheck

Keihard. 3 bangers

Tedious and uninspiring. Live album not the best showcase for this band's abilities.

A little bit too abstract for my taste. Just felt like a recording of a jam session rather than coherent body of work, but further reading suggests that is the style of the band…

Good jams but definitely overstays its welcome at points

Just not for me

I have a love/hate relationship with live albums - this one is pretty good though. The Grateful Dead have always been one of those bands whose discographies feel impenetrable, but this has given me a good window into what they sounded like at the early stages of their career, which I do appreciate

Calm down bub

That’s a clever album title, and it’s also true. Grateful Dead wanted to do a live album to showcase the improv style they use during concert performances. So this album has long tracks. The music is jazz/rock. Although it succeeds in showing off their rambling musicality, it’s too rambling for me to rate it highly.

I guess if my choices are live album or dead, I'll take live album, but it's a harder decision than you'd think. What does Wiki have to teach us about this album? "The title has a double meaning. It refers both to the band (the "Dead") playing live, and is an oxymoron, contrasting the two words in apparent contradiction." Fascinating... I mostly know Jerry Garcia from his work in the ice cream sphere, but now I will know him as a guy who made a live album with a 23 minute song. This is like jazz but with some old timey singing and double the length. I think it'd be fine if all the songs were 3 minutes, but they are very much not, so its noodlyness annoys me. Language observation: I may have said this already (forgive me), but the notion of a "lovelight" comes up a weird amount in songs, and although wiki tells me it's indeed a long-attested word, I never hear it in modern day writing/speech (outside of music). Very Low Lowlight (the anti-lovelight): 'Feedback' !! (was gonna give this album a 2 until I got to this one, really one of the worst songs possible)

The ultimate jam band! Part of me really wants to give this a nostalgic 4 or 5 because it’s The Grateful Dead, after all. But, realistically this was a tough album to get through. I like this band about a decade later.

Jam band waffle, ugh

My life would still be the same even if I hadn't heard this album 🙃

This album proves why I'm not a dead fan. I just can't get around the meandering songs.

No comment

Un disco en vivo VIVO. Limado. Lisérgico. Volás. Buenísimo. 8/10

Not a Dead fan by any means....

I made it 17 minutes.

Back in high school I hated the Grateful Dead. It was punks vs hippies, and I landed squarely on the side of punks. Over the years, this divide has lessened, and I am more open to listening to them. And I did. I did not love it, but at no point did I think that I needed to turn it off. This was perfectly pleasant background music while I work.

One additional star for giving the Lithuanian basketball team the sickest jerseys ever back in 1992.

The reviews for this album were making me very nervous. I'm already someone who does not like jam bands. So that was really concerning me for this lesson. To be fair though, this isn't awful, but this is not engaging at all. I think it's pretty tolerable purely because I was doing something while listening to this. If that were not the case I don't think I could have managed listening through this. I have to say as well, with that first track you can feel every minute ticking by that type of music where it just drags on, I do not understand the appeal. Everything also sounds the same. I cannot imagine why this band is so well liked when what I'm listening to feels pretty devoid of anything unique. It really isn't awful so I don't feel it's fair giving it 1 star, but it's just so boring. Fav Track: Feedback

This is likely a much better album than this I’m just having a really long day and the 1 hour long album didn’t help

Yeah this rips. Such an intimate understanding of ebbs and flows, of building up softly to grand releases, of pacing and structure. Fuck yeah

My journey to the Dead has been, uh, a long, strange trip? I never liked anything I heard from them until I heard Touch of Grey as a kid. I remember being in Tennessee, visiting my grandparents when Jerry Garcia's death was announced on MTV. My friend had that CD, and we listened to Touch of Grey a few times. And that was it for decades. A few years ago, I was in Belize on vacation with my wife, and there was this guy at the very small resort where we were staying who insisted on playing Dead and Company shows every time there was a group event. Normally, I'd find this behavior intolerable, but not only was it endearing, it was enjoyable. Hmmm, maybe these guys are alright? My wife and I spent that whole summer listening to Dead and Company shows on the back patio. Eventually, I bought tickets to see their "last" show, which was great, but most definitely not their last show. Anyway, the album. There definitely was a time in my life when I would have thought this sucked, but as I have gotten my own touch of grey, I don't feel like that anymore. Most of the album's second half has a very bluesy feel, which I quite liked. I skipped Feedback because what in the fuck. -.49 for that I'll be adding this album to my personal collection ⭐⭐⭐.51

The band and this album is vastly overrated. If you want jam/noodling on this list, it should be an album from a different band who is much more accomplished from a completely different decade. After multiple decades of dipping my ears into the Grateful Dead, I am convinced by this point that the Grateful Dead don't belong on the list at all. Or if they do, it should only be their best album, which is IN THE DARK from 1987.

Krevende å komme gjennom. Mange kule partier, men også mye fælt og altfor mye uinteressant. Hadde kanskje hjulpet å være på syre?

Extra star for obviously being able to play their instruments but what the fuck was this

probably the best live album from the Dead, but still lame

A track called ‘Feedback’ that literally is 8 minutes of feedback? Yikes.

The live act of it all is part of the Grateful Dead’s whole thing, so it makes total sense to me that this is included on the list. I’m sure this went nuts in person, especially with a psychedelic of your choice. I personally found it too noodling and unstructured for my taste. But they’re good musicians and I hope everyone at this show had a nice time or whatever.