Arizona Jones Too: Grateful Dead, Acoustic, 1980

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Grateful Dead, Acoustic, 1980

It's been thirty years since the Grateful Dead played acoustic sets at 15 shows in a row at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco and then played 8 shows in a row with acoustic sets at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. They did this to record the album called Reckoning

When they did this it had been 10 years since the band had played acoustic shows so it was a pretty big deal. Thirty years later in hind sight it seems to be a real big deal since they really never did it again. And they kept playing for another 15 years. At these shows they also broke out songs like Birdsong, To Lay Me Down, Ripple, and Deep Elam Blues that had not been played in the last seven to ten years.

So here are two complete acoustic sets from the Warfield run (I think these are the best sounding ones). And some cuts from other shows to give you most of the songs that were played. I call it "Alternative Reckoning" Hope you like it.