When I was a teenager I discovered the Grateful Dead. I had the first album, Working Man's Dead, Europe 72, and Skull & Roses on vinyl, and Built to Last on tape. I had planned on following the band, but didn't have the means to travel. Then Jerry died when I was 19.
In the last year or so, I have rekindled my love of the Dead. When I was young, my favorite GD was early stuff. I didn't really connect with jazzy dead. Now, though, my favorite era is 1980s dead. I have a growing collection of concert recordings. Well, a collection of files, and some will balk at using the word "collection" to refer to digital music files. However, I travel for a living. I was on precisely 170 flights last year (2023). Carrying physical media would be a chore, and I don't have a lot of timw to listen at home when I am there.
I still listen to some metal, but then I have a hankering for Sugaree, or Scarlet Begonias, or Help is on the Way... this has also led me to the Byrds, Mike Nesmith's solo work, New Riders of the Purple Sage, The Flying Burrito Brothers, and more.
I was in the Denver airport on Monday morning and a long haired dude with a big beard stopped and talked to me because of the Steal Your Face pin on my backpack. He told me his uncle had owned a studio in New Jersey back in the day and the Dead had recorded there. "I've got songs most people have never heard, man. Give me your address and I'll burn you a CD and send it to you." No hesitation in an emphatic, "yes" from me.
Hehehe, maybe. I was tripping so hard last weekend that the air was full of three dimensional geometrics. The Ceiling was 4 inches of clear mountain water with a strong current. I meditated on governance and the nature of wants (needs are only belonging to our biology, our mind only wants). During this, yes, a Grateful Dead show was playing - Winterland 1978-12-31.