Live Dead: The Grateful Dead in Concert is a great sampler of live performances from the latter third of the Grateful Dead’s career. Like all Dead performances, there’s a fair amount of chaff with the wheat, but among the three discs–Ticket to New Year’s, View from the Vault, and Downhill from Here–fans will find many gems, as well as extra footage not available on VHS. Ticket to New Year’s, taped on New Year’s Eve 1987 at the Oakland Coliseum, is among the band’s best filmed performances, featuring a robust “Terrapin Station,” a (blessedly short) Space and Drums that segus sweetly into the stoner fave “Dark Star,” and an unflinchingly blusy “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” sung by Jerry Garcia with clear-eyed wistfulness. View from the Vault, taped July 8, 1990 (16 days before keyboardist Brent Mydland died of an overdose), in Pittsburgh, offers both great versions of Dead classics (including “Eyes of the World,” “Let It Grow” and “He’s Gone”) and an intimate look at the dynamics that few could notice when attending a stadium show, including wonderful interplay between Garcia and Mydland. Downhill from Here, shot in the summer of 1989 at Alpine Valley Music Theater in East Troy, Wisconsin, features cheesy, unnecessary video effects. It is redeemed by Garcia’s blistering guitar solos during “Deal” and “China Cat Sunflower/I Know You Rider,” a spacey pairing of “Uncle John’s Band” with “Playing in the Band,” and the tender ballad “Standing on the Moon.” –Dave McCoy and Anne Hurley
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Live Dead - The Grateful Dead in Concert was grateful! You have to come alive this movie! A formidable performance by Jerry Garcia & Mickey Hart make Live Dead - The Grateful Dead in Concert a “ought to espy” movie!
The overwhelming cast includes Jerry Garcia, Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh, Brent Mydland. This cast just make Live Dead - The Grateful Dead in Concert the more wonderful!
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