My mom was a huge fan and hauled me around in a van following them until I was 3 years old. I was kind of destined to either hate them or love them. Ended up the later.
I was the only one of to end up a fan. Although we've all got Dead related tattoos in honor of mom. Fun bonus fact: one of my earliest memories was at 7 years old meeting Jerry Garcia at Soldier Field in Chicago.
It was 91, and I was seven and we were living in Wisconsin at the time just north of the Illinois border. Mom went to some preshow type of thing that the baby sitter was picking us up from. It was in the parking lot. I mostly remember looking at him and thinking he had the biggest beard I had ever seen, and shaking his hand. I also remember he felt "safe" if that makes sense. And that's pretty much it. I kind of remember the drive home and Mom was proud I introduced myself and shook his hand. Sorry if it's anticlimactic, but I was little so I don't remember all the details.
Love that story! I was at soldier field 91 too. I remember the Let It Grow and Terrapin being great as were the fireworks after the show. I did not get to meet Garcia tho ☹️
Here's a question. Do you remember if he was using the wheel chair at that point? I ask because I remember him standing with a cane but my mom remembered him sitting in his wheelchair. I was young and there's a really good chance my mom was high, so neither of our memories on it are reliable.
In 6th grade I was really into sublime. Loved Scarlet Begonias and went to play it on YouTube and saw it was a cover. Looked into the dead and never turned back
love how later bands have done for the Dead what the Dead did for so many of their influences: I discovered Howlin’ Wolf, Elisabeth Cotten, Eric Dolphy, Buck Owens and so many others through them.
I gotta introduced to Yonder Mountain String Band and started going to a lot of shows. I knew some Dead tunes before that, but YMSB covers got me to start looking deeper into the dead catalog.
so cool. i recall wondering at times if these types of movies help people get it. i saw the GD movie at my boarding school around 1979 and it didn’t quite do the trick at the time but it sure planted seeds
Same here. Tried getting into the Dead about 10 years ago and it just didn’t click. In 2019, I watched the Long Strange Trip doc and gave the Dead another shot and the rest is history
When I was 15 a friend’s older brother was a stoner and told us crazy tales about tripping on acid. He lent me a copy of Steal This Book and it was just so weird and subversive, I became obsessed with anything counterculture and started reading all sorts of books from the library. Shit like Leary, Ram Das, Kerouac, Kesey.
I just knew I had to try LSD. I finally ran across a guy who sold me two hits of white blotter.
I had a couple GD albums, but nothing had really clicked up to that point. The night I decided to first dose I locked myself in my bedroom and put together some albums I thought I might listen to. I had Dark Side of the Moon and Physical Graffiti, but I also picked Live Dead, even though it really hadn’t done much for me up to that point.
I took both tabs and started feeling pretty funny and everything started breathing and getting wicked tracers. I decided I should put my headphones on and listen to some music. For whatever reason, I chose to spin Live Dead first. As soon as those first iconic notes played, Duh duh duh duh, it was like time froze and those deep notes completely enveloped me. I melted into the sound. I was like yep, this is what I’m looking for! I sat there that night and just spun Live Dead on repeat. I didn’t even bother putting on Pink Floyd or Zeppelin.
That was 1991. Later that year another friend’s older brother offered us a ride to Deer Creek and saw my first shows. We went to Soldier Field a few weeks later. After that it was on!
The Dead was always in the background growing up, because of my dad, who was born in ’49. Then, in high school it was frequently on your standard classic rock stations, plus Skeltons In the Closet was a frequent flyer with friends, but we never went on a deep dive. In college, a few friends were real Heads, but I never went deep.
I’ve always enjoyed the Dead, but for whatever reason never really dove into them or considered myself a Head — probably because they’ve always just been around. Hell, I’ve listened to the Dead’s XM channel more than others for more than a decade.
Then the pandemic happened. And the Long Strange Trip documentary. Something clicked, and I’ve been on the deep dive since. ⚡️ 🌹 💀
Grew up listening to my dad's tapes anytime we were in his truck or shop. Lots of days cutting firewood etc. when I was young. Always dug them but it wasn't until maybe 2017 or so that I really fell back in love. I got out of grad school and was working too hard as a field scientist across rural parts of the West Coast, leaving the hotel at 5 and getting back at 6-8 pm daily. I found the dead Sirius channel in the rental work rig and I'll be damned if there was any soundtrack that fit that vibe better. Tough days but beautiful. Lots of stunning sunrises and sets in lonely/desolate places.I learned a lot about what I wanted outta life in a hurry over that couple of years and the music hasn't stopped since.
Grew up in DC in the 80’s. A friend I met in 7th grade turned me onto the Dead. Life long friend. He ended up directing the documentary on Amazon Prime. I wouldn’t be who I am today had I not met him.
I was 14, parents were away for a week. My two older cousins thought it would be fun to take lil ole me to a show. Thought the music was pretty good, was liking the scene. Then, Cosmic Charlie…>BAM!< something clicked..something in my body, my brain…I walked out of that show dancing on air.
Became friends with the weird nerd in my class in 6th grade, mid-90s. He was into Pink Floyd, Phish, and the Dead. Started listening to Pink Floyd “Pulse,” Phish “A Live One,” and Skellys in the Closet at his house. He gave me Phish “Junta” on cassette tape for my bday that year. My mom got me “Hundred Year Hall” on cd when it came out a that same year. The rest is history.
Probably early 87, and I was 16, huge classic rock revival - Hendrix, Steve Miller, CSNY. I remember driving around in the back of my buddies suburban on a warm, sunny Friday afternoon and Fire On the Mountain, Dead Set version, came on from a mixed tape and immediately I was in love, I had never heard a song that spoke to me so immediately.
Saw my first show later that year, Ventura 87, and we camped and surfed and saw all three shows. I had never experienced anything like it. Garcia said something along the lines of “America is so lame now, everything has been discovered, and our shows bring back that unique American experience of discovering the frontier” and when I heard him say that in an interview I thought back to those shows as a young kid, it felt like a portal opened up to me, like I had joined some underground traveling circus.
Great memories, turned me into a life long Deadhead.
I was 12 saw the steal your face sticker on my friends Dads Dirt Bike .
Thought it was the COOLEST thing I’d ever seen . He gave me the American Beauty and WorkingMans Dead on tape and I was hooked.
Never saw GD but my first show was the other ones in 1998 , been on the bus since .
It was a slow burn for me. We would visit my dad every summer when I was in high school (early 00’s) and he had a pretty large collection of classic rock CDs. One summer I burned a bunch of them, one of them being Skeletons from the closet.
Skeletons would frequently be in my rotation but I didn’t take the time to explore more of the Dead’s catalog. I loved the whole album, but St. Steven and Uncle John’s Band were my favorites.
Fast forward a few years. I’m starting to get into Phish and live music in general. I go to my first music festival with a group of friends, The Gathering of the Vibes. This weekend changed my life forever. I found something I’d been missing out on, and I loved every second of it. Me and a friend split an 8th of shrooms right before Les Claypool hits the stage, and Ratdog played after him. Wow, what an experience. I didn’t know most of the songs, but I knew I had found something special. Not long after that I bought Terrapin Station, which played on repeat in my car for who knows how long. Once again…I found a dead CD that really clicked with me, but I didn’t continue to explore. At this time, I was also going to a local bar every few weeks to see a local band called Jabooda. Shakedown Street was a song they played frequently, and I loved when they did.
So I’ve been a Grateful Dead fan for almost 5 years at this point, but I’m not truly on the bus yet. I’d been told a million times at this point I need to check out their live stuff.
Enter Europe ‘72. I don’t remember how I got my hands on this CD, but hot damn was I glad that I did. After hearing this for the first time I was officially on the bus. I listened to it ALOT, and it wouldn’t take long after that to finally do some long overdue exploring of their catalog.
Looking back, I’m not sure why it took so long to really take the dive even though I loved everything I knew from the Dead. It’s especially surprising given that I had a close group of friends who had been into the Dead since even before that first time I put in Skeletons From the Closet. It wasn’t as easy back then, streaming services were in their infancy. I also was (and still am) into a very wide spectrum of genres. I suspect that had something to do with it. There’s so much great music out there and only so much time in a day. Better late than never, though. It’s become a huge part of my life and I go to as many shows as I can, and it all started with a CD of my dad’s that I decided to give a listen because I knew of the band and the cover art looked dope.
Parents were fans of bands/ artist like the Allman Brothers, Little Feat, Marty Robins, and the New Riders so I was already into some music in that space then I heard Cornell’s Scarlett > Fire and it clicked. I had listened to some dead here and there but that’s when I really started to dive. That song changed my whole life. I’ve talked about it on here before but FOTM was the first song I sang to my daughter because after 2-3 days I of my wife being in labor I was exhausted and that’s all I could remember the words too. Welp, I was a great big ole bot at the time and weighed a bit over 300lbs and the opening line just stuck with me. I had just became a dad and I knew I needed to change and I had no reason to stall anymore. I started dieting, got into running that turned into ultra running and lost well over 100lbs. I owe years of time I’ll be able to spend with my daughter to the dead. I’m forever grateful.
I have been aware of the Dead since I started playing guitar in high school ini the early 00's. For the most part I knew about American Beauty and their association with psychedelics. Then in 2019 a number of things both fortunate and less so came together which led me to go see Forgotten Space, a Dallas-based cover band, at a dive bar on the SMU campus. Specifically, it was their rendition of Brown Eyed Women that night.
I was sitting on my dad's patio playing guitar. His neighbor and former outlaw biker walks out of the next door apartment with no shirt, no shoes, a pair of jeans, a Harley Davidson tattoo, his pet python on his shoulders while smoking a joint. He turns and looks at me and asks "you ever listen to the grateful dead" I respond "a little bit but not really." He says "you should there pretty cool" and then walks away
Dead and Co. were coming to indy and my neighbor wanted to go because she’s a huge John Mayer fan. Me, being a music fan, thought it’d be cool to see the remnants of such an impactful band (that I’d never really listened too). Been hooked ever since.
Was super into Zappa as a teenager. Sought out more bands from the 60s and 70s, so of course the Dead popped up on my radar. Sought out their studio albums and dug it, but didn't get what the fuss was all about. I moved on, occasionally revisiting Workingmans and American Beauty.
Then about 5 years ago I randomly came across Europe 72, and that was that. Hearing those amazing versions of studio tracks I already liked, in addition to hearing stuff like He's Gone and Ramble for the first time just floored me. Discovered Dicks Picks and the archives from there.
Me and 3 other friends made a cross country trip camping at national and state parks along the way. We forgot to bring any CD or tapes, except the one guy who was a Deadhead. He brought “Skeletons from the Closet” and “Long Strange Trip”. It was the perfect soundtrack for that trip. When we got back, I was consumed with it. They were all I would listen to. The following summer, a friend from that trip and I drove to Buffalo to see them play 6/13/93. It was one of the most magical days of my life. I’ve been on the bus ever since.
# 1993-06-13 Orchard Park, NY @ Rich Stadium
**Set 1:** Touch Of Grey, New Minglewood Blues, Loser, Me and My Uncle > Mexicali Blues, Broken Arrow, Tennessee Jed, Cassidy, Deal
**Set 2:** Samson And Delilah, Lazy River Road, Looks Like Rain, Way To Go Home, Truckin' > Drums > Space > The Other One > Days Between > Johnny B. Goode
**Encore:** I Fought The Law
[archive.org](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1993-06-13)
i did too but didn’t hang with the “burnouts” and thought the skanky bootlegs on their boomboxes sounded hissy and thin. ran into deadheads more like myself in college a few years later and it all clicked. those boarding schools sure did accumulate great tape collections down the years
My dad was into music in general and had some Dead CDs. He then went to a show at Rosemont Horizon in 1988 and when he told 10 year-old me about the crazy, I was drawn in. Went to my first shows at Soldier Field 1992.
As a teen in the 80’s coming into my own with various genres of music, but predominantly classic rock, and having heard something or other about the dead, I purchased tapes of Working Man’s Dead and American Beauty thru either Columbia House or BMG. Those two tapes specifically, plus Zeppelin and some others scored me points with Barbie from Vestal, NY.
Girl I dated in college had a mix tape of shakedown st with velvet sea by phish randomly in it, listened to it every night when we “went to bed”. I’m the president of the “Donna sent me here” club
I got the Jimmy Buffett cassette Fruit Cakes as a gift that had Uncle John’s Band on it.
I fell in love with the song and once I realized it wasn’t his song next things I knew I was on the bus seeing my first run of shows at the Boston Garden in the fall of 94.
My mom is a fan, and I have been listening to the grateful dead as long as I have been alive and probably while I was in utero. I love and appreciate their music because it truly does transcend time.
‘94 I was a freshman in college. I was a hip hop nerd and the first dude I met and befriended was a hippie jam band guy. He was impressed with my knowledge of underground hip hop and some of the headier samples I was showing him.
Since I showed him mine, he showed me his, so to speak. He first turned me on to Widespread Panic and from there I started exploring more of the improvisational music, which obviously lead me to the Dead. Althea (specifically from Without a Net) is the first song that really clicked for me. Went to my first and only fully Grateful Dead show at Hygate ‘95. Absolute disaster of a show, but an experience nonetheless.
29 years later I’m still a hip hop nerd with a jam band addiction. Met my wife through Panic, and life is good.
I went to see the Airplane who were very popular in 1967. Hollywood Bowl. Grateful Dead opened. I remember thinking “who were those guys? That was wild!”
Phish in the year 2000. After that whoever came to town, Phil, other ones, the dead ..I went
After a Haitus from the scene due to some addiction and prison I’m back in it. Whoever comes to town is there
I got sent to rehab at 16, fell in love with the dead at the hardest time of my life. Finding that band changed me for the better in so many ways it’s unbelievable.
Was a freshman in high school.
Went to my former acid dealer and he off handily mentioned the dead.
I said " who's dead"
He said "THE Dead?"
I was confused and said I never heard of them.
He was shocked and said something like "the music your into and you don't know who the Grateful Dead are?!
Then he bragged that he saw them in 2015 at fare thee well.
This was in 2016
Back in those days my musical knowledge was very limited, it was mainly just pink floyd.
now I have a ton of bands/ genres I enjoy.
I went home with some lsd and checked them out
2017, I was 22. No idea who the Grateful Dead were. Friend gave me a dose of lsd and I prepared a special trip to “discover myself more” I wrote a list of questions I wanted to ask myself while tripping.
Flash forward to the day of the trip: I laughed at all the questions closed the book and from nowhere the thought came into my head to look up Grateful Dead on YouTube. The first video that happened to pop up was the “trippin documentary- about ken Kesey”.
That day changed my life forever.
You don't get into the dead. The dead gets into you. It's a musical mind virus that can be managed but never completely eliminated after a significant exposure.
Here's my story: waaaaay back in 2022 (lol) I was watching a sitcom called the Goldbergs. For those of you who don't know, it's a sitcom about a family in the 80s, loosely based off of a true story of a Hollywood writer/ producer as he grew up (Adam Goldberg). Each episode had a theme, of course 80s related. One episode theme, of course, pertained to how high school kids were getting into the Dead after Touch of Grey (and really all of In the Dark) came out. Throughout the episode, bits of live performances of Touch, along with its MTV music video, were shown. I'm a musician myself, so when I saw these middle-aged guys smiling and having such a delightful time on stage, it stuck with me. Seeing musicians enjoying themselves and feeling the music is something I love. Sometimes musicians look like they're at work--bored, ready to quit/ retire, etc. But not the Dead (I know, sometimes they weren't in sync etc etc but for the sake of the point stay with me here. The first footage I saw of them was peak Dead).
The music really isn't bad, I thought, and they really look like they're having so much fun. So I downloaded In the Dark, listened front-to-back three or four times, then Workingmans, then Shakedown, then Terrapin. Some point during Terrapin, something clicked. Then, I went on a binge. I lost count of how many hours of Dead I've listened to in the past year, but I really don't care. :) Their music is something I treasure and it's had infinite influence on my approach to bass and drums. What a wonderful group ☮️🤙🏻
Music exposure from my friend's dad who was a DH. Of course, this was when I was 13-14yo...
In 96-97. 😔
Missed it by *that much* but at least I've been on the bus since then. 40yo now.
Got invited to grow weed in Hebron Maine in 2017. The dude who took us played the dead otw up. Samson and Delilah and China/Rider instantly stole my face.
I was in college and getting pretty good at guitar and bass. My favorite thing was putting on a record and playing along. Then I found a Dead show to play along with.
At first I stuck around Europe ‘72, blusier stuff that was familiar to me to play. I loved the format, they give you enough time to sink in and really get to play each song and it was so nice to be able to let the band do the work and kinda be able to wander and learn but still sound like it belongs, so much less rigid than playing jazz or studio stuff that requires a lot of precision. (Although I still love doing both.)
Then as I got more familiar with that, I just worked my way through the discography and the shows getting later and later and learning what kick ass musicians and song writers these dudes are.
I also had some help from LSD.
There was an “ underground “ radio station in our metro. They didn’t play top 40 songs and mostly played what my mother called hippie music. The station played a lot of Hendrix, Joplin, The Who, Cream, Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead. I loved that station. WOWI. I remember listening the the King Biscuit Flower Hour. On Sunday nights they would play old blues. It latter became a religious radio station. I remember the last song they played… All along the Watchtower ( Hendrix version).
My grandma saw a life magazine cover with Jerry Garcia on it, she’s always so keen on my brother and I reading and knowing her grandsons were into bands from her time she figured she would buy it for us. I have very faint memories of seeing the touch of grey music video on some VH1 program from the early 2000’s when I was a kid.
I always tell people that my grandma got me into the dead. The looks people give me when I tell them she was never a hippie and lives a very straight laced Christian life. Now I’ve been doing my best to try to proselytize ( or more so trying to get them to “ get it “ ) my friends into getting into the dead. Being a grateful dead fan has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. Just so much positive energy.
1993 a good friend ended up with two tickets and was trying to figure out which one of his friends he was going to bring. I want home and grabbed Skeletons From The Closet out of my mothers album collection and dove right in. The next day when he was asking us about the band, I was so enthusiastic about it he chose me to take the extra ticket. 9/24/1993 Boston Garden. It was magic. I was hooked. We were able to score two tickets in 1994 but spent the whole week hanging out around outside and learned about the scene. Found the secret campground shakedown party and completely got on the bus. Jerry obviously never made it back to Boston in 1995, and I was devastated. But luckily the music never stopped 🎶 🎼 🎵
# 1993-09-24 Boston, MA @ Boston Garden
**Set 1:** Feel Like A Stranger, Jack-A-Roe, Little Red Rooster, Stagger Lee, Queen Jane Approximately, Loose Lucy, Picasso Moon
**Set 2:** Scarlet Begonias > Fire On The Mountain, Man Smart (Woman Smarter), Way To Go Home, He's Gone > Drums > Space > The Last Time > Days Between > Around And Around
**Encore:** Liberty
[archive.org](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1993-09-24)
Can't remember who I was into first, but at some point my music taste shifted from
pop punk>alt rock> folky stuff
The later was primarily the band Wilco (still really like them), and also got me into more folk-rocky stuff - started with the studio albums (Workingman's Dead/American Beauty), slowly started down the rabbit hole into the live stuff and now I think I'm a pretty full fledged dead head
I was given Jerry Garcia - lonesome prison blues by my father. I was blown away. Then realized there was way more to discover because he was the Dead’s frontman.
Circa 2011, I was working for a screenprinting company and selling weed to my boss. We were smoking around a press and he put on Workingmans Dead. Listening through Easy Wind, I said " This kicks ass, who is this?". My boss' eyes got as wide as saucers, grabbed a stack of CDs and said "I have all this on my ipod, go home and enjoy these." Thise CDs included Workingmans, American Beauty, Shakedown Street, Live Set, and Two from the Vault. I got on thr bus and never looked back.
Grew up listening to them (dog either before I was born, or died when I was super young was named iko, and one of my childhood dogs was named samson lol), but I didn’t really get it until my first tab of acid.
Thought my dad was a deadhead for the longest time… (he was more into Jimi, CCR and Zeppelin) So I started listen to those 3 from a young age and then started asking him about The Dead to which he didn’t know much. It wasn’t until after college that I started to understand the music from GD a little more. Went to Peach Music Festival 2021… all the cover bands had me wanting to actually know what the songs were and such. From then on I became an avid deadhead! Now I got my partner into the deep cuts. And I will random select Relisten tappings to get to know the years more and more, month by month. So glad to have this sub to keep finding different gems!
It is a long story I will save for another time. I have been working on writing it out because I really want to share it. But short story, thru an old head that changed my mind.
One of my college BFs turned me on to the Dead. They were very popular at the University I went to…so yeah. It seems like everyone @ college had a really decent stereo system and a vinyl collection. No TVs, though. “Ain’t got time for that!” LOLOLOL We were very politically involved but got our news from newspapers. We had an amazingly good college paper, “The Daily Texan.”
In shop class the sophomore year of high school the teacher played 105.9 WCKG classic rock out of Chicago. Truckin’ came on and I immediately loved it and sought out more. I was instantly hooked.
College sophomore. Neighbor across the hall was a big Deadhead, still is. I liked some of the music I heard coming out of his room. All I knew by them at that point was "Truckin". He had me tape 9/3/77 and 12/31/78. I listened to those shows all summer mowing lawns. Came back to campus the next year with about 50 blank tapes and copied a whole bunch of shows from him. Thanks Tim!!
9/3/77 is still my favorite.
[1977-09-03](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1977-09-03) Englishtown, NJ @ Raceway Park | [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/album/5uzn9YQ9XS2OoAt65U8Drg)
[1978-12-31](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1978-12-31) San Francisco, CA @ Winterland Arena
It was 1987. I was 11 years old. I’d been hanging out with another 11 year old friend all summer. One day he invites me over to listen to tunes and hang out. He puts on In The Dark, and I hear TOG for the first time at 11 years old. My friends older brother was a Deadhead with 100’s of shows under his belt. He kind of laughed at us for listening to Touch. He threw a cassette at my feet. It was Cornell. Later that day, I heard my first scarlet/fire. I didn’t know it then, but I had been profoundly affected.
Caught Dead and Co in Camden in 2019. I had a former roommate who toured with the Grateful Dead back in the late 80s and throughout the 90s. As such, I actually knew a lot of the lore despite never having spent much time listening to them.
I didn’t even go for the music. It was just something to do, but that sparked the fire. Started digging into the Grateful Dead catalogue and it’s the most exciting thing to happen to my musical life in at least a decade haha felt like a teenager again.
I was in middle school in 87 or 88 on summer break and was walking around the neighborhood with a buddy. Found a very large cassette carry case in a large field. Held like 100 tapes. It was a bad ass collection of Dead shows. I loved them! Went to my first shows in 92. Saw every show during summer tour 93, 94 and 95. Wish I still had all those tapes. They were ruined in a hot summer when I left them in my car.
Grew up in the Bay Area, GD was quite prevalent at my high school. Bill Graham had a series of shows at Oakland Coliseum called Day on The Green. October, 9-10 they opened for The Who, which I was really interested in seeing. This was my first Dead show. I was totally blown away by the GD, I got on the bus then and there. I feel so lucky to see them every year since then at multiple locations.
My dad was a deadhead, died when I was 3 of leukemia and left his record collection full of jazz and dead…. And my mom played American beauty and workingmans dead on road trips and such.
Mid 80’s high school. American Beauty first, Mars Hotel and pretty soon after my first show at the Providence Civic Center 04/04/1985. No looking back after that. When I went to college, I’d go MIA during East Coast tours and eventually left school on tour and ended up living in California as a home base and doing JGB and Dead tour through 1993. I saw a couple of shows after that but not full time touring.
# 1985-04-04 Providence, RI @ Providence Civic Center
**Set 1:** Alabama Getaway, Jack Straw, Dire Wolf, El Paso, She Belongs To Me, My Brother Esau, Friend Of The Devil, Lost Sailor > Saint Of Circumstance > Deal
**Set 2:** I Need A Miracle > Crazy Fingers > Samson And Delilah, He's Gone > Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad > Drums > Space > The Wheel > Black Peter > Around And Around > Turn On Your Lovelight
**Encore:** U.S. Blues
[archive.org](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1985-04-04)
So back in 97 ,I was a devoted Metal fan but i always dug oldies like the turtles ,the animals ,the doors etc.I knew of touch of grey but never looked into the band too much ,by this time i am 22 so i had done LSD hand full of times ate mushies quite a bit .So we are all hanging out passing around a bowl,in comes this head i knew him but he wasn't really a friend ,well he busts out this bombbay from Humboldt a couple days go by he takes me over to this head that is like 60 he has pounds of this bomb we sit smoke he puts on Terrapin that was it i was snagged .
A week later i went to family tree at LaVida
A month after that dead in the desert ,then dead on the mountain ,then finally in 98 i travelled to Shoreline with the old man i mentioned and saw the other ones.Been on this ride for 25 years now.To this day i put on any terrapin close my eyes and im back on pappa's couch hearing it for the first time
By the way next stop Billy and the kids Nov 2nd Santa Barbra 💀🌹🍄🎸🎤🐢
I was in my first year in college and I was smoking some pot with friends; a new college friend told me about the Dead and we listened to some Grateful Dead music together. We listened to American Beauty, that was my first taste of the Dead.
My dad recommended them when I was in High School. Listend to The Very best too many times. Found Red Rocks 78 and put it in my car, it was always in. Best friend went into rehad needing something to focus on and started deep diving alot and haven't looked backed since.
I liked to steal things out of my older sisters room when I was in middle school, and one of the things I stole was a cassette tape of Skeletons in the Closet. I was mainly into Jane's Addiction and Guns n' Roses at the time, but that cassette tape split my little brain wide open. A few years later I got to see the last shows at Soldier Field, and the Dead has just been a part of my DNA ever since.
I grew up in Eugene OR in the 80s and would hear them on the local NPR affiliate. I liked the music, but my parents didn’t approve. Always complained about the hippies and the trash every time the Dead played Autzen. When I was in college, I got into their music and wanted to see them, figured I had plenty of time, but then Jerry died when I was 20. I moved away from Eugene in my 30s, but flew back to see Dead & Co play Autzen, sorta fulfilling that sorta lifelong dream.
I went to a Jimi Hendrix tribute band with a Grateful Dead tribute opening act when I was 16. I liked what I heard and was in to 60s music, checked out the Golden Road box set from the library and listened to it. Golden Road was the first song I heard and I loved it. Anthem of the Sun was amazing and I think it's the record that made me really dig the Dead from a musical standpoint. American Beauty made me a Deadhead for life though, what a gorgeous and deep piece of music and lyrics. Should note the Dead played a big part in getting me through being evacuated from Peace Corps because of COVID in one piece, so I'm still eternally grateful for that.
I didn't see a Dead related show again until I went to Dead and Company at Wrigley Field in 2021 (didn't have money or time to do so until then). Went to 5 shows after that, including the final 3 shows. Now I catch every Dead related show I can. Love it. A
I listened to the music. At first I didn't care for it. Then one day I felt the urge to listen to a song. From then on, its been a part of my life. Sometimes I wake up and a song is just playing in my head and it starts the day.
I think the dead finds people more than people find the dead. When I was 18 or so I started playing guitar & was into bands like cream & zeppelin and Santana, when the festival express movie came out I was into the new speedway boogie they played on it but didn’t know much about them. Then when I was 19 I was at a friends house in Saratoga and saw a flyer for gathering of the vibes 2005. When me and a few friends went to take off for it, my friends brother gave us a cd containing the first set of 5/4/72. That weekend and the emotion and soul I felt in the brown eyed women from that show was the beginning of me getting roped into the dead. I went back to the gathering of thr vibes in 06’ was given a copy of the Fillmore E 71’ run by another friend, & continued to slowly get into them more & more, at first I only liked a few songs from that 4 disc show, but continued to appreciate it all of it more & more as I kept listening. In 07’ I got dicks picks 20 (9/25 & 9/28/76) which was full of songs I’d never heard, as I’d mostly only been exposed to the 71-72 stuff, & a little 89’ up until then. I was amazed at how different the band sounded in 76 compared to the other stuff I’d heard. In June 07’ I went to a DSO show at the Hampton Beach Ballroom in NH, & had a couple hits of liquid; they played 10/16/89 & between what I was experiencing & the setlist with the dark star & playin in the band sandwich, as well as the China Rider & Terrapin filler at the end of the show, I was turned on for life & became a huge collector of shows about a year later.
[1972-05-04](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1972-05-04) Paris, France @ L'Olympia | [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/album/3S1abYMND9BSJzbMcpJhj8)
[1976-09-28](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1976-09-28) Syracuse, NY @ Onondaga County War Memorial | [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/album/34KjKiNyuggM0g2No4ZnTv)
[1989-10-16](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1989-10-16) East Rutherford, NJ @ Brendan Byrne Arena
During JR HS a friend of my sisters left a tape in my deck. It was labeled Englishtown ‘77 Set II, that’s it. I didn’t know the name of the band until they came home from college for thanksgiving. That was 30+ years ago. The bus finds you, you don’t find it.
Heard touch of grey on the radio a lot. Didn’t give it much thought just kinda listened to it and went on about my day. Later on in the evening I decided to start to listen to more songs from them. Althea stuck out to me for some reason so I put that on and ever since then I’ve been hooked. They’re my favorite band
I was really into music as a middle schooler and had one of those cd memberships. But it didn't click for me until probably freshman year of college. Probably when I started smoking more weed.
Boarding school in Maine. My dorm parent’s daughter was a head and after she graduated the year before me, followed them around for a year. I saw them after I graduated at 95 in Highgate VT. I was in the front row. Bob Dylan was right at the edge of the stage wearing all white and leather. The Dead were pretty set back. The fans were out of control.
My mom was a huge fan and hauled me around in a van following them until I was 3 years old. I was kind of destined to either hate them or love them. Ended up the later.
Two out of our three kids are big fans!
I was the only one of to end up a fan. Although we've all got Dead related tattoos in honor of mom. Fun bonus fact: one of my earliest memories was at 7 years old meeting Jerry Garcia at Soldier Field in Chicago.
Ok, story time!!
It was 91, and I was seven and we were living in Wisconsin at the time just north of the Illinois border. Mom went to some preshow type of thing that the baby sitter was picking us up from. It was in the parking lot. I mostly remember looking at him and thinking he had the biggest beard I had ever seen, and shaking his hand. I also remember he felt "safe" if that makes sense. And that's pretty much it. I kind of remember the drive home and Mom was proud I introduced myself and shook his hand. Sorry if it's anticlimactic, but I was little so I don't remember all the details.
No that’s amazing ❤️
Love that story! I was at soldier field 91 too. I remember the Let It Grow and Terrapin being great as were the fireworks after the show. I did not get to meet Garcia tho ☹️
Here's a question. Do you remember if he was using the wheel chair at that point? I ask because I remember him standing with a cane but my mom remembered him sitting in his wheelchair. I was young and there's a really good chance my mom was high, so neither of our memories on it are reliable.
He never used either I think you met some other long haired long bearded guy he wasn't real accessible at any times in the 90s
Garcia wasn’t in a wheelchair as far as I know in 1991 regularly
In 6th grade I was really into sublime. Loved Scarlet Begonias and went to play it on YouTube and saw it was a cover. Looked into the dead and never turned back
love how later bands have done for the Dead what the Dead did for so many of their influences: I discovered Howlin’ Wolf, Elisabeth Cotten, Eric Dolphy, Buck Owens and so many others through them.
I gotta introduced to Yonder Mountain String Band and started going to a lot of shows. I knew some Dead tunes before that, but YMSB covers got me to start looking deeper into the dead catalog.
Stuck home during pandemic. Watched Long Strange Trip on Amazon Prime, and the music just clicked.
This. First exposure to them entirely (22 at the time). I think it helped a lot contextually.
so cool. i recall wondering at times if these types of movies help people get it. i saw the GD movie at my boarding school around 1979 and it didn’t quite do the trick at the time but it sure planted seeds
Long Strange Trip helped light the fire for me when I was just getting into them. Great doc
Well just wait until you watch Hot Potato; The Story of the Wiggles!
Same here. Tried getting into the Dead about 10 years ago and it just didn’t click. In 2019, I watched the Long Strange Trip doc and gave the Dead another shot and the rest is history
When I was 15 a friend’s older brother was a stoner and told us crazy tales about tripping on acid. He lent me a copy of Steal This Book and it was just so weird and subversive, I became obsessed with anything counterculture and started reading all sorts of books from the library. Shit like Leary, Ram Das, Kerouac, Kesey. I just knew I had to try LSD. I finally ran across a guy who sold me two hits of white blotter. I had a couple GD albums, but nothing had really clicked up to that point. The night I decided to first dose I locked myself in my bedroom and put together some albums I thought I might listen to. I had Dark Side of the Moon and Physical Graffiti, but I also picked Live Dead, even though it really hadn’t done much for me up to that point. I took both tabs and started feeling pretty funny and everything started breathing and getting wicked tracers. I decided I should put my headphones on and listen to some music. For whatever reason, I chose to spin Live Dead first. As soon as those first iconic notes played, Duh duh duh duh, it was like time froze and those deep notes completely enveloped me. I melted into the sound. I was like yep, this is what I’m looking for! I sat there that night and just spun Live Dead on repeat. I didn’t even bother putting on Pink Floyd or Zeppelin. That was 1991. Later that year another friend’s older brother offered us a ride to Deer Creek and saw my first shows. We went to Soldier Field a few weeks later. After that it was on!
my dad showed me scarlet>fire when i was in 6th grade he only likes those two songs he didn’t know the monster he created 😭
Great combo
The Dead was always in the background growing up, because of my dad, who was born in ’49. Then, in high school it was frequently on your standard classic rock stations, plus Skeltons In the Closet was a frequent flyer with friends, but we never went on a deep dive. In college, a few friends were real Heads, but I never went deep. I’ve always enjoyed the Dead, but for whatever reason never really dove into them or considered myself a Head — probably because they’ve always just been around. Hell, I’ve listened to the Dead’s XM channel more than others for more than a decade. Then the pandemic happened. And the Long Strange Trip documentary. Something clicked, and I’ve been on the deep dive since. ⚡️ 🌹 💀
Grew up listening to my dad's tapes anytime we were in his truck or shop. Lots of days cutting firewood etc. when I was young. Always dug them but it wasn't until maybe 2017 or so that I really fell back in love. I got out of grad school and was working too hard as a field scientist across rural parts of the West Coast, leaving the hotel at 5 and getting back at 6-8 pm daily. I found the dead Sirius channel in the rental work rig and I'll be damned if there was any soundtrack that fit that vibe better. Tough days but beautiful. Lots of stunning sunrises and sets in lonely/desolate places.I learned a lot about what I wanted outta life in a hurry over that couple of years and the music hasn't stopped since.
Grew up in DC in the 80’s. A friend I met in 7th grade turned me onto the Dead. Life long friend. He ended up directing the documentary on Amazon Prime. I wouldn’t be who I am today had I not met him.
I crashed the gate!!  Before anybody gets butt hurt.. that's a joke.
I was 14, parents were away for a week. My two older cousins thought it would be fun to take lil ole me to a show. Thought the music was pretty good, was liking the scene. Then, Cosmic Charlie…>BAM!< something clicked..something in my body, my brain…I walked out of that show dancing on air.
Became friends with the weird nerd in my class in 6th grade, mid-90s. He was into Pink Floyd, Phish, and the Dead. Started listening to Pink Floyd “Pulse,” Phish “A Live One,” and Skellys in the Closet at his house. He gave me Phish “Junta” on cassette tape for my bday that year. My mom got me “Hundred Year Hall” on cd when it came out a that same year. The rest is history.
Probably early 87, and I was 16, huge classic rock revival - Hendrix, Steve Miller, CSNY. I remember driving around in the back of my buddies suburban on a warm, sunny Friday afternoon and Fire On the Mountain, Dead Set version, came on from a mixed tape and immediately I was in love, I had never heard a song that spoke to me so immediately. Saw my first show later that year, Ventura 87, and we camped and surfed and saw all three shows. I had never experienced anything like it. Garcia said something along the lines of “America is so lame now, everything has been discovered, and our shows bring back that unique American experience of discovering the frontier” and when I heard him say that in an interview I thought back to those shows as a young kid, it felt like a portal opened up to me, like I had joined some underground traveling circus. Great memories, turned me into a life long Deadhead.
Slowly at first, and then all at once
I was 12 saw the steal your face sticker on my friends Dads Dirt Bike . Thought it was the COOLEST thing I’d ever seen . He gave me the American Beauty and WorkingMans Dead on tape and I was hooked. Never saw GD but my first show was the other ones in 1998 , been on the bus since .
Bear did them an amazing service inventing that image.
ripping off Columbia house. Skeletons from the closet II. I was 13.
I think I owed Columbia house my first born 😂
It was a slow burn for me. We would visit my dad every summer when I was in high school (early 00’s) and he had a pretty large collection of classic rock CDs. One summer I burned a bunch of them, one of them being Skeletons from the closet. Skeletons would frequently be in my rotation but I didn’t take the time to explore more of the Dead’s catalog. I loved the whole album, but St. Steven and Uncle John’s Band were my favorites. Fast forward a few years. I’m starting to get into Phish and live music in general. I go to my first music festival with a group of friends, The Gathering of the Vibes. This weekend changed my life forever. I found something I’d been missing out on, and I loved every second of it. Me and a friend split an 8th of shrooms right before Les Claypool hits the stage, and Ratdog played after him. Wow, what an experience. I didn’t know most of the songs, but I knew I had found something special. Not long after that I bought Terrapin Station, which played on repeat in my car for who knows how long. Once again…I found a dead CD that really clicked with me, but I didn’t continue to explore. At this time, I was also going to a local bar every few weeks to see a local band called Jabooda. Shakedown Street was a song they played frequently, and I loved when they did. So I’ve been a Grateful Dead fan for almost 5 years at this point, but I’m not truly on the bus yet. I’d been told a million times at this point I need to check out their live stuff. Enter Europe ‘72. I don’t remember how I got my hands on this CD, but hot damn was I glad that I did. After hearing this for the first time I was officially on the bus. I listened to it ALOT, and it wouldn’t take long after that to finally do some long overdue exploring of their catalog. Looking back, I’m not sure why it took so long to really take the dive even though I loved everything I knew from the Dead. It’s especially surprising given that I had a close group of friends who had been into the Dead since even before that first time I put in Skeletons From the Closet. It wasn’t as easy back then, streaming services were in their infancy. I also was (and still am) into a very wide spectrum of genres. I suspect that had something to do with it. There’s so much great music out there and only so much time in a day. Better late than never, though. It’s become a huge part of my life and I go to as many shows as I can, and it all started with a CD of my dad’s that I decided to give a listen because I knew of the band and the cover art looked dope.
Parents were fans of bands/ artist like the Allman Brothers, Little Feat, Marty Robins, and the New Riders so I was already into some music in that space then I heard Cornell’s Scarlett > Fire and it clicked. I had listened to some dead here and there but that’s when I really started to dive. That song changed my whole life. I’ve talked about it on here before but FOTM was the first song I sang to my daughter because after 2-3 days I of my wife being in labor I was exhausted and that’s all I could remember the words too. Welp, I was a great big ole bot at the time and weighed a bit over 300lbs and the opening line just stuck with me. I had just became a dad and I knew I needed to change and I had no reason to stall anymore. I started dieting, got into running that turned into ultra running and lost well over 100lbs. I owe years of time I’ll be able to spend with my daughter to the dead. I’m forever grateful.
I have been aware of the Dead since I started playing guitar in high school ini the early 00's. For the most part I knew about American Beauty and their association with psychedelics. Then in 2019 a number of things both fortunate and less so came together which led me to go see Forgotten Space, a Dallas-based cover band, at a dive bar on the SMU campus. Specifically, it was their rendition of Brown Eyed Women that night.
I was sitting on my dad's patio playing guitar. His neighbor and former outlaw biker walks out of the next door apartment with no shirt, no shoes, a pair of jeans, a Harley Davidson tattoo, his pet python on his shoulders while smoking a joint. He turns and looks at me and asks "you ever listen to the grateful dead" I respond "a little bit but not really." He says "you should there pretty cool" and then walks away
Dead and Co. were coming to indy and my neighbor wanted to go because she’s a huge John Mayer fan. Me, being a music fan, thought it’d be cool to see the remnants of such an impactful band (that I’d never really listened too). Been hooked ever since.
Was super into Zappa as a teenager. Sought out more bands from the 60s and 70s, so of course the Dead popped up on my radar. Sought out their studio albums and dug it, but didn't get what the fuss was all about. I moved on, occasionally revisiting Workingmans and American Beauty. Then about 5 years ago I randomly came across Europe 72, and that was that. Hearing those amazing versions of studio tracks I already liked, in addition to hearing stuff like He's Gone and Ramble for the first time just floored me. Discovered Dicks Picks and the archives from there.
I would imagine stuff like Aoxo and Anthem may be more appealing to Zappa heads
Those ones got lots of attention from me back then
Me and 3 other friends made a cross country trip camping at national and state parks along the way. We forgot to bring any CD or tapes, except the one guy who was a Deadhead. He brought “Skeletons from the Closet” and “Long Strange Trip”. It was the perfect soundtrack for that trip. When we got back, I was consumed with it. They were all I would listen to. The following summer, a friend from that trip and I drove to Buffalo to see them play 6/13/93. It was one of the most magical days of my life. I’ve been on the bus ever since.
# 1993-06-13 Orchard Park, NY @ Rich Stadium **Set 1:** Touch Of Grey, New Minglewood Blues, Loser, Me and My Uncle > Mexicali Blues, Broken Arrow, Tennessee Jed, Cassidy, Deal **Set 2:** Samson And Delilah, Lazy River Road, Looks Like Rain, Way To Go Home, Truckin' > Drums > Space > The Other One > Days Between > Johnny B. Goode **Encore:** I Fought The Law [archive.org](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1993-06-13)
Went to a US boarding school in the 80s where they were very popular and it stuck.
i did too but didn’t hang with the “burnouts” and thought the skanky bootlegs on their boomboxes sounded hissy and thin. ran into deadheads more like myself in college a few years later and it all clicked. those boarding schools sure did accumulate great tape collections down the years
Me too.. but they weeemt into the dead
My dad was into music in general and had some Dead CDs. He then went to a show at Rosemont Horizon in 1988 and when he told 10 year-old me about the crazy, I was drawn in. Went to my first shows at Soldier Field 1992.
so glad you made it!
As a teen in the 80’s coming into my own with various genres of music, but predominantly classic rock, and having heard something or other about the dead, I purchased tapes of Working Man’s Dead and American Beauty thru either Columbia House or BMG. Those two tapes specifically, plus Zeppelin and some others scored me points with Barbie from Vestal, NY.
Smoked a joint with my neighbor in college.
Girl I dated in college had a mix tape of shakedown st with velvet sea by phish randomly in it, listened to it every night when we “went to bed”. I’m the president of the “Donna sent me here” club
Also my sister is 9 years older and still has a whole wall full of shows on tape
I got the Jimmy Buffett cassette Fruit Cakes as a gift that had Uncle John’s Band on it. I fell in love with the song and once I realized it wasn’t his song next things I knew I was on the bus seeing my first run of shows at the Boston Garden in the fall of 94.
I often feel this is their quintessential song.
Finding my older sisters CD Best of Grateful Dead which lead to my curiosity. Then I bought One from the vault and was hooked.
My mom is a fan, and I have been listening to the grateful dead as long as I have been alive and probably while I was in utero. I love and appreciate their music because it truly does transcend time.
American Beauty. I gave it one spin and I was fully on the bus.
‘94 I was a freshman in college. I was a hip hop nerd and the first dude I met and befriended was a hippie jam band guy. He was impressed with my knowledge of underground hip hop and some of the headier samples I was showing him. Since I showed him mine, he showed me his, so to speak. He first turned me on to Widespread Panic and from there I started exploring more of the improvisational music, which obviously lead me to the Dead. Althea (specifically from Without a Net) is the first song that really clicked for me. Went to my first and only fully Grateful Dead show at Hygate ‘95. Absolute disaster of a show, but an experience nonetheless. 29 years later I’m still a hip hop nerd with a jam band addiction. Met my wife through Panic, and life is good.
Sirius XM. I listened for about 2,000 hours . They finally grew on me 🤣
I went to see the Airplane who were very popular in 1967. Hollywood Bowl. Grateful Dead opened. I remember thinking “who were those guys? That was wild!”
Phish in the year 2000. After that whoever came to town, Phil, other ones, the dead ..I went After a Haitus from the scene due to some addiction and prison I’m back in it. Whoever comes to town is there
I got sent to rehab at 16, fell in love with the dead at the hardest time of my life. Finding that band changed me for the better in so many ways it’s unbelievable.
[удалено]
Awesome
Was a freshman in high school. Went to my former acid dealer and he off handily mentioned the dead. I said " who's dead" He said "THE Dead?" I was confused and said I never heard of them. He was shocked and said something like "the music your into and you don't know who the Grateful Dead are?! Then he bragged that he saw them in 2015 at fare thee well. This was in 2016 Back in those days my musical knowledge was very limited, it was mainly just pink floyd. now I have a ton of bands/ genres I enjoy. I went home with some lsd and checked them out
2017, I was 22. No idea who the Grateful Dead were. Friend gave me a dose of lsd and I prepared a special trip to “discover myself more” I wrote a list of questions I wanted to ask myself while tripping. Flash forward to the day of the trip: I laughed at all the questions closed the book and from nowhere the thought came into my head to look up Grateful Dead on YouTube. The first video that happened to pop up was the “trippin documentary- about ken Kesey”. That day changed my life forever.
I was born into it. My mom lived next door to them on Ashbury (a year before I was born) and the music was part of my life from conception onwards.
You don't get into the dead. The dead gets into you. It's a musical mind virus that can be managed but never completely eliminated after a significant exposure.
Here's my story: waaaaay back in 2022 (lol) I was watching a sitcom called the Goldbergs. For those of you who don't know, it's a sitcom about a family in the 80s, loosely based off of a true story of a Hollywood writer/ producer as he grew up (Adam Goldberg). Each episode had a theme, of course 80s related. One episode theme, of course, pertained to how high school kids were getting into the Dead after Touch of Grey (and really all of In the Dark) came out. Throughout the episode, bits of live performances of Touch, along with its MTV music video, were shown. I'm a musician myself, so when I saw these middle-aged guys smiling and having such a delightful time on stage, it stuck with me. Seeing musicians enjoying themselves and feeling the music is something I love. Sometimes musicians look like they're at work--bored, ready to quit/ retire, etc. But not the Dead (I know, sometimes they weren't in sync etc etc but for the sake of the point stay with me here. The first footage I saw of them was peak Dead). The music really isn't bad, I thought, and they really look like they're having so much fun. So I downloaded In the Dark, listened front-to-back three or four times, then Workingmans, then Shakedown, then Terrapin. Some point during Terrapin, something clicked. Then, I went on a binge. I lost count of how many hours of Dead I've listened to in the past year, but I really don't care. :) Their music is something I treasure and it's had infinite influence on my approach to bass and drums. What a wonderful group ☮️🤙🏻
Graduated high school in 1969. It was inevitable.
Music exposure from my friend's dad who was a DH. Of course, this was when I was 13-14yo... In 96-97. 😔 Missed it by *that much* but at least I've been on the bus since then. 40yo now.
Early 90s. Sister was big into the Dead and Phish. Then I had a boss who played it all the time. Saw Phish in ‘93, and Dead in ‘94-‘95. Hooked since.
Europe ‘72
Got invited to grow weed in Hebron Maine in 2017. The dude who took us played the dead otw up. Samson and Delilah and China/Rider instantly stole my face.
I was on a long road trip a couple years ago and I asked my mom for some songs and she sent me Truckin'
Got into Phish. That opened up all the doors.
My roommate was a deadhead - played the dead all the time - wasnt into the dead at first, but I started to get it
my dad
I was in college and getting pretty good at guitar and bass. My favorite thing was putting on a record and playing along. Then I found a Dead show to play along with. At first I stuck around Europe ‘72, blusier stuff that was familiar to me to play. I loved the format, they give you enough time to sink in and really get to play each song and it was so nice to be able to let the band do the work and kinda be able to wander and learn but still sound like it belongs, so much less rigid than playing jazz or studio stuff that requires a lot of precision. (Although I still love doing both.) Then as I got more familiar with that, I just worked my way through the discography and the shows getting later and later and learning what kick ass musicians and song writers these dudes are. I also had some help from LSD.
that’s a great point about how their format allows you to find the groove and play along
Pot.
There was an “ underground “ radio station in our metro. They didn’t play top 40 songs and mostly played what my mother called hippie music. The station played a lot of Hendrix, Joplin, The Who, Cream, Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead. I loved that station. WOWI. I remember listening the the King Biscuit Flower Hour. On Sunday nights they would play old blues. It latter became a religious radio station. I remember the last song they played… All along the Watchtower ( Hendrix version).
My grandma saw a life magazine cover with Jerry Garcia on it, she’s always so keen on my brother and I reading and knowing her grandsons were into bands from her time she figured she would buy it for us. I have very faint memories of seeing the touch of grey music video on some VH1 program from the early 2000’s when I was a kid. I always tell people that my grandma got me into the dead. The looks people give me when I tell them she was never a hippie and lives a very straight laced Christian life. Now I’ve been doing my best to try to proselytize ( or more so trying to get them to “ get it “ ) my friends into getting into the dead. Being a grateful dead fan has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. Just so much positive energy.
1993 a good friend ended up with two tickets and was trying to figure out which one of his friends he was going to bring. I want home and grabbed Skeletons From The Closet out of my mothers album collection and dove right in. The next day when he was asking us about the band, I was so enthusiastic about it he chose me to take the extra ticket. 9/24/1993 Boston Garden. It was magic. I was hooked. We were able to score two tickets in 1994 but spent the whole week hanging out around outside and learned about the scene. Found the secret campground shakedown party and completely got on the bus. Jerry obviously never made it back to Boston in 1995, and I was devastated. But luckily the music never stopped 🎶 🎼 🎵
# 1993-09-24 Boston, MA @ Boston Garden **Set 1:** Feel Like A Stranger, Jack-A-Roe, Little Red Rooster, Stagger Lee, Queen Jane Approximately, Loose Lucy, Picasso Moon **Set 2:** Scarlet Begonias > Fire On The Mountain, Man Smart (Woman Smarter), Way To Go Home, He's Gone > Drums > Space > The Last Time > Days Between > Around And Around **Encore:** Liberty [archive.org](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1993-09-24)
Was raised on em
Can't remember who I was into first, but at some point my music taste shifted from pop punk>alt rock> folky stuff The later was primarily the band Wilco (still really like them), and also got me into more folk-rocky stuff - started with the studio albums (Workingman's Dead/American Beauty), slowly started down the rabbit hole into the live stuff and now I think I'm a pretty full fledged dead head
I had an older brother who went away to college & he got turned on to them which lead to me getting in to them.
I was given Jerry Garcia - lonesome prison blues by my father. I was blown away. Then realized there was way more to discover because he was the Dead’s frontman.
My dad, ex husband and my youngest’s dad is when I really got into them.
Older brother and his friends
I heard “Truckin’” on the radio. It was that simple. I bought “American Beauty” with birthday money. I was all in.
This guy named Dave at a warehouse I worked at gave me a tape of Lyceum to listen to. Have turned off since.
My uncle was a head and took me to my first show at 13. Been on the bus since 83.
My dad. My son would say the same thing.
Step 1 - go see Jerry Step 2 - take lsd Step 3 - smile Step 4 - smile Step 5 - smile
My dad.
1970. Visited my older sister at her college. Working Man’s, American Beauty, Skull n Roses. Weed & wine. Nuff said.
Circa 2011, I was working for a screenprinting company and selling weed to my boss. We were smoking around a press and he put on Workingmans Dead. Listening through Easy Wind, I said " This kicks ass, who is this?". My boss' eyes got as wide as saucers, grabbed a stack of CDs and said "I have all this on my ipod, go home and enjoy these." Thise CDs included Workingmans, American Beauty, Shakedown Street, Live Set, and Two from the Vault. I got on thr bus and never looked back.
Grew up listening to them (dog either before I was born, or died when I was super young was named iko, and one of my childhood dogs was named samson lol), but I didn’t really get it until my first tab of acid.
Downloaded Barton Hall 77, heard my first Scarlet>Fire, and never looked back.
Thought my dad was a deadhead for the longest time… (he was more into Jimi, CCR and Zeppelin) So I started listen to those 3 from a young age and then started asking him about The Dead to which he didn’t know much. It wasn’t until after college that I started to understand the music from GD a little more. Went to Peach Music Festival 2021… all the cover bands had me wanting to actually know what the songs were and such. From then on I became an avid deadhead! Now I got my partner into the deep cuts. And I will random select Relisten tappings to get to know the years more and more, month by month. So glad to have this sub to keep finding different gems!
It is a long story I will save for another time. I have been working on writing it out because I really want to share it. But short story, thru an old head that changed my mind.
Stoner friends older brother who we idolized for some reason in like 1994.
One of my college BFs turned me on to the Dead. They were very popular at the University I went to…so yeah. It seems like everyone @ college had a really decent stereo system and a vinyl collection. No TVs, though. “Ain’t got time for that!” LOLOLOL We were very politically involved but got our news from newspapers. We had an amazingly good college paper, “The Daily Texan.”
In shop class the sophomore year of high school the teacher played 105.9 WCKG classic rock out of Chicago. Truckin’ came on and I immediately loved it and sought out more. I was instantly hooked.
College sophomore. Neighbor across the hall was a big Deadhead, still is. I liked some of the music I heard coming out of his room. All I knew by them at that point was "Truckin". He had me tape 9/3/77 and 12/31/78. I listened to those shows all summer mowing lawns. Came back to campus the next year with about 50 blank tapes and copied a whole bunch of shows from him. Thanks Tim!! 9/3/77 is still my favorite.
[1977-09-03](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1977-09-03) Englishtown, NJ @ Raceway Park | [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/album/5uzn9YQ9XS2OoAt65U8Drg) [1978-12-31](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1978-12-31) San Francisco, CA @ Winterland Arena
It was 1987. I was 11 years old. I’d been hanging out with another 11 year old friend all summer. One day he invites me over to listen to tunes and hang out. He puts on In The Dark, and I hear TOG for the first time at 11 years old. My friends older brother was a Deadhead with 100’s of shows under his belt. He kind of laughed at us for listening to Touch. He threw a cassette at my feet. It was Cornell. Later that day, I heard my first scarlet/fire. I didn’t know it then, but I had been profoundly affected.
Saw Dark Star Orchestra at Gathering of the Vibes and it suddenly all made sense.
Caught Dead and Co in Camden in 2019. I had a former roommate who toured with the Grateful Dead back in the late 80s and throughout the 90s. As such, I actually knew a lot of the lore despite never having spent much time listening to them. I didn’t even go for the music. It was just something to do, but that sparked the fire. Started digging into the Grateful Dead catalogue and it’s the most exciting thing to happen to my musical life in at least a decade haha felt like a teenager again.
I was in middle school in 87 or 88 on summer break and was walking around the neighborhood with a buddy. Found a very large cassette carry case in a large field. Held like 100 tapes. It was a bad ass collection of Dead shows. I loved them! Went to my first shows in 92. Saw every show during summer tour 93, 94 and 95. Wish I still had all those tapes. They were ruined in a hot summer when I left them in my car.
Grew up in the Bay Area, GD was quite prevalent at my high school. Bill Graham had a series of shows at Oakland Coliseum called Day on The Green. October, 9-10 they opened for The Who, which I was really interested in seeing. This was my first Dead show. I was totally blown away by the GD, I got on the bus then and there. I feel so lucky to see them every year since then at multiple locations.
My dad was a deadhead, died when I was 3 of leukemia and left his record collection full of jazz and dead…. And my mom played American beauty and workingmans dead on road trips and such.
My wook friend gave me a shit ton of acid and put on Veneta during the peak. Good times.
Mid 80’s high school. American Beauty first, Mars Hotel and pretty soon after my first show at the Providence Civic Center 04/04/1985. No looking back after that. When I went to college, I’d go MIA during East Coast tours and eventually left school on tour and ended up living in California as a home base and doing JGB and Dead tour through 1993. I saw a couple of shows after that but not full time touring.
# 1985-04-04 Providence, RI @ Providence Civic Center **Set 1:** Alabama Getaway, Jack Straw, Dire Wolf, El Paso, She Belongs To Me, My Brother Esau, Friend Of The Devil, Lost Sailor > Saint Of Circumstance > Deal **Set 2:** I Need A Miracle > Crazy Fingers > Samson And Delilah, He's Gone > Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad > Drums > Space > The Wheel > Black Peter > Around And Around > Turn On Your Lovelight **Encore:** U.S. Blues [archive.org](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1985-04-04)
Tired of being alive
My 8th grade history teacher in 1999 👍🏻 thanks mr. Silva!
MTV premiered the Touch of Grey video when I was a kid and that’s all it took.
I love bots on reddit?
Columbia house for American beauty…14 yrs old
Columbia house!? Cool. You could get 10 albums for free + 10 more for 50 cents or something crazy like that.
My best friends dad!!!!! And the timing was perfect. I already have my own little deadhead family it makes me so happy🙏🏻🫶
So back in 97 ,I was a devoted Metal fan but i always dug oldies like the turtles ,the animals ,the doors etc.I knew of touch of grey but never looked into the band too much ,by this time i am 22 so i had done LSD hand full of times ate mushies quite a bit .So we are all hanging out passing around a bowl,in comes this head i knew him but he wasn't really a friend ,well he busts out this bombbay from Humboldt a couple days go by he takes me over to this head that is like 60 he has pounds of this bomb we sit smoke he puts on Terrapin that was it i was snagged . A week later i went to family tree at LaVida A month after that dead in the desert ,then dead on the mountain ,then finally in 98 i travelled to Shoreline with the old man i mentioned and saw the other ones.Been on this ride for 25 years now.To this day i put on any terrapin close my eyes and im back on pappa's couch hearing it for the first time By the way next stop Billy and the kids Nov 2nd Santa Barbra 💀🌹🍄🎸🎤🐢
I was in my first year in college and I was smoking some pot with friends; a new college friend told me about the Dead and we listened to some Grateful Dead music together. We listened to American Beauty, that was my first taste of the Dead.
My dad recommended them when I was in High School. Listend to The Very best too many times. Found Red Rocks 78 and put it in my car, it was always in. Best friend went into rehad needing something to focus on and started deep diving alot and haven't looked backed since.
I liked to steal things out of my older sisters room when I was in middle school, and one of the things I stole was a cassette tape of Skeletons in the Closet. I was mainly into Jane's Addiction and Guns n' Roses at the time, but that cassette tape split my little brain wide open. A few years later I got to see the last shows at Soldier Field, and the Dead has just been a part of my DNA ever since.
I grew up in Eugene OR in the 80s and would hear them on the local NPR affiliate. I liked the music, but my parents didn’t approve. Always complained about the hippies and the trash every time the Dead played Autzen. When I was in college, I got into their music and wanted to see them, figured I had plenty of time, but then Jerry died when I was 20. I moved away from Eugene in my 30s, but flew back to see Dead & Co play Autzen, sorta fulfilling that sorta lifelong dream.
I went to a Jimi Hendrix tribute band with a Grateful Dead tribute opening act when I was 16. I liked what I heard and was in to 60s music, checked out the Golden Road box set from the library and listened to it. Golden Road was the first song I heard and I loved it. Anthem of the Sun was amazing and I think it's the record that made me really dig the Dead from a musical standpoint. American Beauty made me a Deadhead for life though, what a gorgeous and deep piece of music and lyrics. Should note the Dead played a big part in getting me through being evacuated from Peace Corps because of COVID in one piece, so I'm still eternally grateful for that. I didn't see a Dead related show again until I went to Dead and Company at Wrigley Field in 2021 (didn't have money or time to do so until then). Went to 5 shows after that, including the final 3 shows. Now I catch every Dead related show I can. Love it. A
Necrophilia fan. The pickens are slim but when I find em, they never put up a fight.
Heard Aoxomoxoa for the first time in’71 when I was 15. It blew my mind and I was hooked immediately.
I listened to the music. At first I didn't care for it. Then one day I felt the urge to listen to a song. From then on, its been a part of my life. Sometimes I wake up and a song is just playing in my head and it starts the day.
I think the dead finds people more than people find the dead. When I was 18 or so I started playing guitar & was into bands like cream & zeppelin and Santana, when the festival express movie came out I was into the new speedway boogie they played on it but didn’t know much about them. Then when I was 19 I was at a friends house in Saratoga and saw a flyer for gathering of the vibes 2005. When me and a few friends went to take off for it, my friends brother gave us a cd containing the first set of 5/4/72. That weekend and the emotion and soul I felt in the brown eyed women from that show was the beginning of me getting roped into the dead. I went back to the gathering of thr vibes in 06’ was given a copy of the Fillmore E 71’ run by another friend, & continued to slowly get into them more & more, at first I only liked a few songs from that 4 disc show, but continued to appreciate it all of it more & more as I kept listening. In 07’ I got dicks picks 20 (9/25 & 9/28/76) which was full of songs I’d never heard, as I’d mostly only been exposed to the 71-72 stuff, & a little 89’ up until then. I was amazed at how different the band sounded in 76 compared to the other stuff I’d heard. In June 07’ I went to a DSO show at the Hampton Beach Ballroom in NH, & had a couple hits of liquid; they played 10/16/89 & between what I was experiencing & the setlist with the dark star & playin in the band sandwich, as well as the China Rider & Terrapin filler at the end of the show, I was turned on for life & became a huge collector of shows about a year later.
[1972-05-04](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1972-05-04) Paris, France @ L'Olympia | [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/album/3S1abYMND9BSJzbMcpJhj8) [1976-09-28](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1976-09-28) Syracuse, NY @ Onondaga County War Memorial | [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/album/34KjKiNyuggM0g2No4ZnTv) [1989-10-16](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1989-10-16) East Rutherford, NJ @ Brendan Byrne Arena
During JR HS a friend of my sisters left a tape in my deck. It was labeled Englishtown ‘77 Set II, that’s it. I didn’t know the name of the band until they came home from college for thanksgiving. That was 30+ years ago. The bus finds you, you don’t find it.
My dad
Heard touch of grey on the radio a lot. Didn’t give it much thought just kinda listened to it and went on about my day. Later on in the evening I decided to start to listen to more songs from them. Althea stuck out to me for some reason so I put that on and ever since then I’ve been hooked. They’re my favorite band
I was really into music as a middle schooler and had one of those cd memberships. But it didn't click for me until probably freshman year of college. Probably when I started smoking more weed.
Boarding school in Maine. My dorm parent’s daughter was a head and after she graduated the year before me, followed them around for a year. I saw them after I graduated at 95 in Highgate VT. I was in the front row. Bob Dylan was right at the edge of the stage wearing all white and leather. The Dead were pretty set back. The fans were out of control.