Millionaire” (a pun on a newspaper headline after Owsley, the band’s sound man and resident chemist, was busted) amid R&B-party favors (the Olympics’ 1960 hit “Big Boy Pete”) and future cover staples including the traditional “I Know You Rider” and John Phillips’ “Me and My Uncle.” In a spirited thrashing of “New Minglewood Blues,” guitarist Bob Weir sings like a hip, brash kid, which he was (Weir had recently turned 19). These three sets at the Matrix – a club founded by Jefferson Airplane‘s Marty Balin – catch the original quintet in primal, exuberant form, slipping early originals such as “Alice D. In late 1966, more than a year into their evolution, the Grateful Dead were still in the early stages of their psychedelia: an acid-dance band with bar-band aggression, tripping in its jams but just starting to write and largely reliant on folk and blues covers. This story was first published in the special Rolling Stone edition Grateful Dead: The Ultimate Guide These 20 shows are genuinely essential in at least one way: If I had no other live Dead in my collection, I would be happy and fulfilled with this.

This list jumps and dances through the story, but it’s not a bad place to start, if you’re not in deep already: more than 40 hours of performance from key runs and one-nighters in every decade, drawn from archival releases, the vast amount of circulating recordings and my own good times with the music. That long, strange trip was a continually unfolding tale of highs and trials, dedicated evolution and surrender to the moment, often caught vividly in the recording studio but told most immediately each night (or day) onstage.

In fact, there is only one definitive list of the Dead’s greatest concerts - and it includes every show they played, in every lineup, from their pizza-parlor-gig days as the Warlocks in 1965 until guitarist Jerry Garcia‘s death in 1995. Endless debate over set-list minutiae is inevitable. Passionate challenge from fans, especially hardcore Deadheads and veteran tape traders, is guaranteed. Choosing and justifying a list of essential Grateful Dead shows - 20, 200, or even 2,000 - is treacherous work.

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