You are right - it is the movie. The way it was billed on Radio Times it looked like a concert that was released on DVD a while ago.
Watched the film (don’t how I’ve managed to never see the whole thing in one go) and then the albums thing (got that recorded somewhere but re-recorded just in case). Just superb! Eyes Of The World - magnificent. Utterly delightful.
I left the TV on after and did something else in another room (guilty! Irresponsible…) Came back in later to some awful, boring wailing and flailing: Beth Hart at the Royal Albert Hall. The contrast was enormous (to me. I know others love her…but on this showing, I’m not sure exactly why).
Talk about from the sublime to the ridiculous.
Still, Viva The Dead. Made my evening!
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I should watch the movie again. Jerry Garcia spent hours and hours syncing the sound and the film to produce the movie.
You probably need this 2 DVD version
https://www.discogs.com/release/5172750-The-Grateful-Dead-The-Grateful-Dead-Movie
And the 5 CD soundtrack
https://www.discogs.com/release/1378940-The-Grateful-Dead-The-Grateful-Dead-Movie-Soundtrack
That’s if you don’t have them, although the soundtrack looks quite expensive on Discogs now.
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I remember when the Grateful dead Movie was first released - it was shown in the Scala cinema in Kings Cross in London (still a music venue). A gang of us Deadheads travelled up from Bristol and a had a fine time. You could hardly see the screen for the smoke!
I think that was a key event in founding Deadheads In England, an informal grouping which produced Spiral Light magazine for a fair while. Anyone else remember Spiral Light? I still have some copies somewhere.
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Used to love the late-nighters at The Scala. Wonder if the enclosure with the rocks at the front for apes/monkeys/whatever they were for* is still there? Very much doubt it, but y’never know!
I don’t remember Spiral Light, or The Dead movie being on there, sadly.
- “Primaterium” just popped up in my memory. Dont know if that was it, though.
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I would love to see the GD Movie in a cinema. I haven’t heard of Spiral Light - I used to get Dark Star magazine which covered the Grateful Dead and other related US music.
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Not sure if anyone else here has got the latest Dave’s Picks Release (Vol. 42)… Feb 1974 from Winterland. Stunning recording and the band is on. I believe it’s one of the first Wall of Sound shows. Interestingly, it was the last ever performance of Here Comes Sunshine until '93… so a 19 year hiatus. There is no indication in the playing of why they might have dropped it… it’s a killer version.
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One of my very fav Dead recordings.
We’ve been watching Long Strange Trip on Amazon Prime. It’s a 2017 documentary film that’s broken up into 6 episodes on Amazon Prime.
The 6th is so sad. It became very clear that Jerry killed himself . . . slowly . . . with heroin and likely food. And his bandmates (especially Bobby) seemed pretty pissed off about it. His disdain for any sort of structure to the band and their business seemed to be a metaphor for his life generally. When the “hippie” “la dee da” attitude also applies to one’s health, it doesn’t take long. He was 53 when he died and looked all of 73.
Long Strange Trip is a great doc, and yes Episode 6 is very very sad. I like the honesty though. No sugar coating. I don’t think Garcia’s approach was “la dee da” though. I do think he had no interest in being the “leader” of anything though. I think the pressure of that role being foisted on him and the deification of him, well documented in the film, contributed greatly to his seeking escape. As for looking 20 years older than he actually was. That’s true… but was really also true all of his life. When he was really really struggling with substances though, he not only looked old… he looked frail, and sick. I saw 4 shows on that last tour. It felt like he was dying on stage for all of us to see. Ironically, the only songs he coinsistently nailed on that tour were the sad songs. The songs of pain, and death, and suffering.
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The Analogue Productions pressing is sublime.
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I dont own that but will check for it! EDIT: Pretty hard to find; out of print at the moment.
Bart… hopefully the image works. That AP pressing commands a hefty price on the used market. Look for this one… A more recent release from GD Productions… recorded from the same tour and the sound quality is very very close to the AP recording drawn from the Radio City Music Hall shows. Much more readily available at better prices…. AND… almost twice the music as this one is 2 lp’s at 33 RPM. Highly highly recommended.
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The Grateful Dead Movie is extraordinary. I have seen it many, many times… in the theater for most of them… and then on my own dvd and on YouTube, some PBS nights in the past when they were looking for donations.
As for seeing it in the theaters, a quick story…. I don’t know if there are other folks on here that grew up in NY, and more specifically on Long Island but there was an institution back in the day called The Mini Cinema that my mom first took me to when I was a kid, along with a friend of mine, to see the movie “Fantasia.” Then when I got to be an older teen we discovered that the Mini Cinema became a whole different thing at night… The place had a phenomenal sound system with huge speakers in the back of the theater and then other speakers around the room. And this was “back in the day…” 70’s and then into the 80’s… and while they checked to make sure you weren’t bringing any glass bottles in to the theater they never discouraged pot smoking and people did it all the time and openly… including bringing big bongs into the theater… but I digress.
Anyway, for many years every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night at midnight they played “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and every Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday night they showed “The Grateful Dead Movie” which was 2 hours and 20 minutes long or so so went u til almost 2:30am. There were so many Sunday evenings when my friends and I would be hanging out on a Sunday evening not doing anything particularly when someone would say “ Hey maybe we should go to “The Mini” and see the Dead movie. It was always a good time. So, great movie, the Dead, great sound system and super close to my house… a no-brainer as they say.
The historical content in the movie is great, particularly for me the oldest pictures, etc. and the playing is tremendous. I think the ‘73 - ‘74 period is definitely one of the peaks (among others) of the Grateful Dead’s career and there are many song versions in that movie that are right at the top of their game.
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Yes indeed Clive, I highly recommend the 5 disc cd set of the Grateful Dead movie. Superb playing throughout. I never get tired of those discs!
Indeed pev999, I posted my own experience of seeing The Grateful Dead Movie in the cinema below here before I read your post. It was always fun to go see the movie with a group of friends. Not the same as going to an actual Dead show but as one of my friends used to say… “On any given night it beats most other things you can do other than being at an actual Dead show…”
Hey zipperheadbanjo, yes indeed, I get all the Dave’s Picks series so I do have and have been listening to the latest DP #42, 2/23/74, from Winterland in San Francisco. It is big fun for sure. Huge, long shows from that era.
As I said in a post I just put up on here I love the ‘73 - ‘74 era Dead and I have been listening to it a lot for the past year or two. One of the Dead’s “Jazziest” periods and the one drummer sound has a lot to recommend it.
The liner notes for this show say that it was an almost, but not quite fully fleshed out “Wall of Sound” PA system with the full-on debut of the famous “WOS” system being one month later.
Indeed zipperheadbanjo, agree with much of what you say. I don’t remember if it was in the “Long Strange Trip” documentary or somewhere else Insaw an interview with Phil where he was saying that one of the hardest things for the other band members to get, and deal with, around Garcia’s drug use - especially later on - was that it seemed as if he had chosen the drugs over the music, even “worse” than choosing the drugs over his fellow band mates. A tough time all the way around.
Also like your comment about the slow, sad songs being some of the most deeply played and sung near the end. I saw four show in the Pacific Northwest a month or two before Jerry died and I can still remember an absolutely blistering version of “So Many Roads” that was a dagger to the heart, in a “good” way, and went on forever.
Hey Folks, wanted to say thanks to all of you who come to this thread and read and post. I have been away from it for a bit - no excuses… no good reasons… lol, just life/inertia stuff. I am back and have been posting this morning.
I am grateful (pun intended) for this thread and for you other dead fans out there. Seeing and reading your posts always brings me joy.
As the old bumper sticker on tour used to say… “We are everywhere!”
Keep on trucking’…
I have been meaning to mention for a while now that I picked up the “Dcks Picks Vo. 19” from 10/19/73 in Oklahoma City on vinyl. It is 6 LPs and from that ‘73 - ‘74 time period I was referencing in a post above. I missed out on the first “Dcks Picks” vinyl release as I thought about it for so long without actually buying it that it sold out. So I jumped on this one when it was announced. Great playing, great sound. Highly recommended. Not cheap but this one is worth it to me.