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This album comes from 1969 and was the Dead's fourth album. It was just excellent choice of material from an excellent concert. The recording, mix and sound are prefectly done.

Being on CD, you get really appreciate this performance. It is a stunning to hear one song blend into the next, as opposed to having the breaks while you turned over the album.

Inspite of the stupid remarks some make about too much "noodling", Dark Star is great 23 minute jam, with Garcia experimenting in styles. It is the best version of Dark Star on record. There is a lot of interplay with Lesh and other band members. "Noodling" is a new term, used by people with limited attention spans, who only want to hear the hits. It is used extensively on Carlos Santana when he plays anything besides Black Magic Woman, or something from Supernatural.

The album moves into St. Stephen and the Eleven, which are the two best tracks on the album, and some of the best things the Dead has ever done.

The minor issues are that Turn on Your Lovelight and Feedback go on a little too long. However, they were smart in putting Feedback at the end of the album.

This album is another wonderful remaster by Rhino Records. Rhino (which is now owned by Warner Brothers) has remastered all of the Dead's Warner Brothers albums. They put them in a new cardboard foldout cover with lots of interesting liner notes. They also added bonus material, using up every second of each CD. However, since the original album was 75 minutes, there is not much room for extras. All that is added is an excerpt of another version of Dark Star, and a very amusing radio commercial for this album.

There are now other live albums you can buy from the same time period and with some of the same songs. But, they all are inferior. Two From the Vault is an example of where the performance and the mix are not as good.

The best live Greatful Dead album is the five CD set, So Many Roads. Instead of being just from just one concert, the music is chosen so the best performance of a particular song is used. Some people ridicule it because it is essentially the best of the Grateful Dead live. And many purists don't want to hear a song outside the context of the complete concert.


Incredible performance from 1969...a vibe that makes me feel like I'm there...great jamming!   August 30, 2005
 12 out of 13 found this review helpful

Live/Dead (unlike, say, Without a Net) has a vibe to it that makes me feel like I'm right there in the audience. I'm not sure what it is about it that gives me that feeling, but it's there. Perhaps its the starkness of the recording, which sounds like it was made in a small club. Maybe it's the fearlessness of the musicianship. They SOUND like they're fresh-faced kids exploring music and having a great time at it.

All I can say is that very few live albums give me the chills like this one does. The jamming is unreal. And I agree with other reviewers, this does seem like the definitive version of "Dark Star" (which I'm listening to as I type this).

Of course, "Dark Star" inevitably seques into "St. Stephen" and "The Eleven" and, man, I feel like I'm in concert heaven. Every song is strong. The entire CD is outstanding.

Oh, and the sound quality is awesome. Rhino did a stellar job remastering this in glorious HDCD.

If you want to know what the Grateful Dead sounded like live, this would be the CD to start with.


Great CD, but only by if you really need a new CD   March 9, 2003
 10 out of 12 found this review helpful

If you already have Live Dead the new remastering is hardly worth it. The 2 extra tracks are the studio version of "Dark Star" and a brief track that's nothing more than a vocal announcement. Neither adds a thing to the original album.

The 5 stars is simply for Live Dead, not the new version. Unless you have a top of the line HDCD player there is no need to replace the CD you already own.


The Dead have universal appeal - and this album proves it   October 21, 2005
 10 out of 10 found this review helpful

Let's make something clear here: I'm not a dope-smokin' hippie. In fact, I'm a button-down Sideshow Bob right-wing type. (Perish the thought!)

Why am I telling you this? Certainly not to antagonize you. Only to make clear that when I say that the surpassing glory of the Grateful Dead was their capacity to be the world's most roof-shaking JAM BAND, it ain't because I'm a '60s acid casualty - it's because this group has universal appeal.

That's right: universal appeal, at least for anyone who appreciates intellectually and emotionally compelling instrumental, vocal, and improvisational rock music. The Dead were actually far more versatile than their detractors ever give them credit for (they played CONVINCING country, blues, and folk music - no mean feat - as well as the hardest of hardcore psychedelia, rock, and jazz-rock), but still it has to be said that they were the only group in the world that could spend 30 minutes improvising around the pedal-point signature of "Dark Star" or the hammer-lock riff of "The Other One" while completely holding a sober man's attention. The drugs, the hippie culture associated with the group, and the clutch of febrile imitators that have sprung up in the Dead's wake (yet are unworthy of holding Keith Godchaux's jockstrap) have all unfortunately obscured the brilliance of their music.

Which is a shame, because Live/Dead, the FIRST (but it warn't the last!) live album the band ever released back in 1969, lets that jammin' freak flag FLY HIGH. The shortest song on this album is a blink-and-you-missed-it 6 minutes 32 seconds, but the length of the songs shouldn't be taken to indicate laziness or indulgence. For an album which only has 5 actual songs plus an 8-minute squall of exploratory feedback, there's actually an immense amount of substance. "Dark Star" itself is endlessly rewarding, and needs little praise from me given what's already been written by others here. Suffice to say that it is the centerpiece of the album.

"St. Stephen" follows directly out of "Dark Star," and punches with far more force and grit than the weak studio cut from Aoxomoxoa. Raising the stakes, the Dead then traipse across a delightful bridge ("William Tell has stretched his bow") before jumping off the other side into the kaleidoscopic whirlpool of "The Eleven," where both band and audience become so deliriously dizzy with joy that even Jerry's audible mistakes just enhance the feeling of barely-controlled ecstasy. (In his definitive Beatles study "Revolution In The Head," noted music critic Ian MacDonald wrote that he considered this performance of "The Eleven" to embody the boundlessly optimistic "Spirit of '67" like nothing else he had ever heard).

The aerial highs of "The Eleven" finally give way to blues-shouter Ron "Pigpen" McKernan's jaunt through "Turn On Your Lovelight." (Another incidental note: the original 2-LP forced you to get up and flip between "Dark Star" and "St. Stephen," "The Eleven" and "Lovelight," a necessity induced by vinyl limitations, but one which really hurt the flow of the album nonetheless. The CD, however, segues all of these songs together as one long block of music, the way they were meant to be heard.) Pig raps and rolls while Weir and Lesh play call-and-reponse with the backing vocals and Garcia darts in and out with bouncy bop-rock guitar lines. At 15 minutes, a song like this SHOULD drag (I've heard many live versions where it does), but it's a testament to how tight the group was that night (1/26/69 for this and "The Eleven") that it doesn't sag at all.

"Turn On Your Lovelight" finally tumbles to an orgasmic close (Lesh: "And LEAVE it on!"), and we're left with an uncharacteristically dark, bleak end to our journey with the Garcia-sung "Death Don't Have No Mercy" (this is probably the best version I've heard, though the one featured on Two From The Vault is close) and a squall of disarming, yet compelling feedback...but what's that we hear right before the conclusion of the album? "Lay down, my dear brothers/Lay down and take your rest/Oh won't you lay your heads upon your saviour's breast?/I love you, but Jesus loves you the best/And we bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight." Ah yes. A sweet little send-off to make clear it's all been in good fun.

Live/Dead gives the lie to every claim ever made about The Grateful Dead being underachievers who coasted on musty left-wing nostalgia or a mediocrity made possible by drug-lowered standards. These songs, despite their length, aren't the slightest bit indulgent, and prove - for those whose prejudice hasn't sealed their ears - that the Dead were, on any given night, the best show in town.