History Trivia / TheGratefulDead

* OldShame: Although the album cover is one of the most iconic logos in the history of rock music, ''Steal Your Face'' is considered the worst live album by the band. The two main criticisms were its poor sound quality, which required studio overdubs, and its emphasis on songs rather than the band's signature improvisational jamming. It's frequently referred to as ''Steal Your Money'' by fans, critics, and the band themselves. When Creator/RhinoRecords released two box-sets containing their main studio and live albums, they opted to exclude this album and instead release the separate five-disk ''Grateful Dead Movie Soundtrack'' to represent that time in the band's history.

* SimilarlyNamedWorks: The original name was “The Warlocks,” but they changed it when they found out that a band in New York City was also using the same name. That band later changed their name too, to The Music/VelvetUnderground. (Who, incidentally, had ''another'' case of NamesTheSame, since it turns out a pre-Music/{{ACDC}} Malcolm Young was a member of a different band ''also'' called the Velvet Underground.)

* NamesTheSame: The original name was “The Warlocks,” but they changed it when they found out that a band in New York City was also using the same name. That band later changed their name too, to The Music/VelvetUnderground. (Who, incidentally, had ''another'' case of NamesTheSame, since it turns out a pre-Music/{{ACDC}} Malcolm Young was a member of a different band ''also'' called the Velvet Underground.)

** "Cosmic Charlie" was dropped from the repertoire twice. It was played between 1969 and 1971 and was briefly revived in 1976. Garcia felt the song worked better as a recording and its complicated three part harmonies and melodic bridges made it too tough for the band to sing and play their instruments at the same time.

** The Grate Dead's final tour, in summer 1995, has been dubbed [[https://www.salon.com/2015/12/06/it_was_the_tour_from_hell_inside_the_grateful_deads_last_shows_and_jerry_garcias_final_days/ The Tour from Hell]]" by the band and Deadheads for many reasons: Regular gatecrashing attempts by fans who tried to get into shows without tickets, death threats against Jerry Garcia by a crazed stalker, and three fans being struck by lightning at a Washington D.C. show. All of this was compounded by Garcia's increasingly poor health and playing, which resulted in many bad nights for the band with few memorable moments or jams. The bad behavior of fans culminated at their stop at Deer Creek Music Center in Indiana, at which Deadheads inside the show egged on and encouraged a gatecrashing attempt that resulted in hundreds flooding into and crowding the amphitheater. After the gate came down, the normally tolerant Dead cut the concert short, canceled the next night's performance there, and [[https://www.jambase.com/article/deadheads-crash-fence-during-grateful-dead-concert-at-deer-creek-on-this-date-25-years-ago published a stern letter]] to Deadheads warning them that if they kept seeing that kind of behavior from the stage, the band would stop touring. It was even signed by Garcia who, even in his deteriorating condition and his regular ambivalence towards fan behavior, was shaken by what he saw at Deer Creek. Sadly the band's threat proved to be prophetic: Garcia died one month after the last show of the summer tour, and the Dead prompty ceased to be in its original iteration.

* TroubledProduction: The Dead's summer 1995 tour was the band's last and has been dubbed [[https://www.salon.com/2015/12/06/it_was_the_tour_from_hell_inside_the_grateful_deads_last_shows_and_jerry_garcias_final_days/ The Tour from Hell]]" by the band and Deadheads for many reasons: Regular gatecrashing attempts by fans who tried to get into shows without tickets, death threats against Jerry Garcia by a crazed stalker, and three fans being struck by lightning at a Washington D.C. show. All of this was compounded by Garcia's increasingly poor health and playing, which resulted in many bad nights for the band with few memorable moments or jams. The bad behavior of fans culminated at their stop at Deer Creek Music Center in Indiana, at which Deadheads inside the show egged on and encouraged a gatecrashing attempt that resulted in hundreds flooding into and crowding the amphitheater. After the gate came down, the normally tolerant Dead cut the concert short, canceled the next night's performance there, and [[https://www.jambase.com/article/deadheads-crash-fence-during-grateful-dead-concert-at-deer-creek-on-this-date-25-years-ago published a stern letter]] to Deadheads warning them that if they kept seeing that kind of behavior from the stage, the band would stop touring. It was even signed by Garcia who, even in his deteriorating condition and his regular ambivalence towards fan behavior, was shaken by what he saw at Deer Creek. Sadly the band's threat proved to be prophetic: Garcia died one month after the last show of the summer tour, and the Dead prompty ceased to be in its original iteration.

* TroubledProduction: The band clashed with producer Keith Olsen (Music/FleetwoodMac) over the production of ''Terrapin Station'', disagreeing about Paul Buckmaster’s (Music/EltonJohn) string arrangements and various other aspects of the production. They also were displeased with Olsen’s demands that they keep performing the same segments repeatedly; as Kreutzmann pointed out, “Our very identity is based on the opposite principle.” Nevertheless, Weir worked with Olsen again for his solo album ''Heaven Help the Fool'' later in 1977. Olsen’s production style may also have been a contributing factor to why their 1977 live shows are so highly regarded: the band’s playing was unusually tight at that point, probably because they’d rehearsed a lot more than usual.

** "Comsic Charlie" was dropped from the repertoire twice. It was played between 1969 and 1971 and was briefly revived in 1976. Garcia felt the song worked better as a recording and its complicated three part harmonies and melodic bridges made it too tough for the band to sing and play their instruments at the same time.

** "Born Cross-Eyed", an early Bob Weir composition, was shelved after a few performances in early 1968 because Weir was unsatisfied with the song. After its live retirement, the song appeared on ''Anthem of the Sun'' as as the B-side to the "Dark Star" single, and was also performed at the Fare Thee Well shows.

** "Easy Wind", "Alligator", and "Turn On Your Love Light" were all dropped because they were too associated with singer-keyboardist Ron "Pigpen" [=McKernan=] for the band to perform without him.

** Prior to playing in the Grateful Dead, Brent Mydland was in an obscure 70s soft rock band named Silver, whose song "Wham Bam" was included in Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxyVol2

* OneHitWonder: Technically, yes. The band has eighteen Gold records, two Platinum records (''Workingman's Dead'' and ''What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been'') and four multi-Platinum records (''American Beauty'', ''Europe '72'', ''Skeletons from the Closet'', and ''In the Dark''). However, they've only had ''one'' song hit the Billboard Hot 100's Top 40, "Touch of Grey", which made it to #9 in 1987. The success of "Touch of Grey" had a lot to do with its quirky music video, the band's first, which made the Dead into unlikely MTV stars. This [[http://www.dead.net/features/blair-jackson/blair-s-golden-road-blog-touch-grey-summer essay]] on the band's official website goes in depth into what happened to the Dead scene after the song became a hit.

* BannedInChina: The Dead were banned from performing in certain cities or at certain arenas, not because of the content of their music, but because venues simply couldn't handle the size of the band's travelling Deadhead fanbase. One of the sticking points for some venues was the famous "Shakedown Street" bazaar that fans would set up in the parking lot outside of Dead shows, and where t-shirts, food and drugs could easily be purchased. The NewbieBoom that stemmed from the success of their 1987 "Touch of Grey" single brought an unwanted, violent, party-animal element into their fanbase that also resulted in the band being asked to not play in some cities again. There was also an incident in 1982, where the Dead were banned from playing at the Boston Garden because arena officials caught the band [[RoleEndingMisdemeanor grilling lobsters on a fire escape]] before a show. That ban was lifted in 1991, and the band played there regularly until frontman Jerry Garcia's death in 1995

* ArtistExistenceFailure:
** Despite the infamous keyboardist curse, only Brent Mydland is a straight example: Pigpen left the band in '72 due to failing health and died the following year, Keith Godchaux left in '79 after his drug use created problems with the band, and died in a car crash the following year, Vince Welneck died 11 years after the band broke up, and TC is still alive. Mydland died after a successful tour, devastating the band.
** And of course, Garcia's own essentially killed the Dead. His death also caused the cancellation of the band's 1995 fall tour (tickets for which were already on sale) and ended the sessions what would have been the band's final album.

* BigNameFan: Many, from individuals well known only inside the fanbase, to musicians, celebrities and politicians. Among the best known is Hall of Fame [[UsefulNotes/NationalBasketballAssociation basketball player]] Bill Walton, who was affectionately dubbed “Grateful Red” by other Deadheads. Walton is a particularly noteworthy case of a Big Name Fan because of [[http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/entertainment/music/sdut-bill-walton-chats-about-life-and-the-grateful-dead-2015jun27-htmlstory.html his intense devotion]] to the Dead and how he has made their music part of his daily life. He started attending shows in 1967, when he was still in high school and well before he became famous as an athlete. He has attended at least 850 concerts since then, including Dead & Company shows). He also befriended the band, let them stay at his house whenever they were in his neck of the woods and accompanied them to their 1978 concerts in Egypt. He's also written liner notes for some of their albums and often works in references to the band when he commentates on NBA games for ESPN.

** When Jerry Garcia died in 1995, the band was in the middle of recording their fifteenth studio album. The sessions had dragged on for several years, because Garcia was uninterested in working in the studio and he never recorded lead vocal tracks for any of his songs. Bob Weir and Phil Lesh tried to continue work on the record after his death, but by 1999, they had both conceded that there wasn't enough worthy material to merit a release. Among the songs that were to be included were "So Many Roads" and "Childhood's End", both of which had become live staples in the band's final years. The 2019 album ''Ready or Not'' is presented as a reconstruction of what this final album would have sounded like, and includes live versions of nine songs from their final crop of new material.

* HeAlsoDid: Lyricist John Perry Barlow is also a co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

* OldShame: Although the album cover is one of the most iconic logos in the history of rock music, ''Steal Your Face'' is considered the worst live album by the band. The two main criticisms were its poor sound quality, which required studio overdubs, and its emphasis on songs rather than the band’s signature improvisational jamming. It’s frequently referred to as ''Steal Your Money'' by fans, critics, and the band themselves. When Rhino Records released two box-sets containing their main studio and live albums, they opted to exclude this album and instead release the separate five-disk ''Grateful Dead Movie Soundtrack'' to represent that time in the band’s history.

* OneHitWonder: Technically, yes. The band has eighteen Gold records (sales of 500,000 albums), one Platinum record (sales of 1 million records) and two multi-Platinum records (sales of more than 2 million). However, they've only had ''one'' song hit the Billboard Hot 100's Top 40, "Touch of Grey", which made it to #9 in 1987. The success of "Touch of Grey" had a lot to do with its quirky music video, the band's first, which made the Dead into unlikely MTV stars. This [[http://www.dead.net/features/blair-jackson/blair-s-golden-road-blog-touch-grey-summer essay]] on the band's official website goes in depth into what happened to the Dead scene after the song became a hit.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: The Dead had a tour planned for fall 1995 after Garcia got out of rehab. Tickets for the shows were already on sale when the tour was canceled when Garcia died six weeks before it was to start. The tour would have included a six night run at the Boston Garden, planned to be the final concerts ever held at the famous New England arena before its demolition. Instead, the venue had no special final concert: The last show there was a concert by [[Music/LedZeppelin Robert Plant and Jimmy Page]] a few months before Jerry's death.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: The Dead had a tour planned for fall 1995 after Garcia got out of rehab. Tickets for the shows were already on sale when the tour was canceled when Garcia died six weeks before it was to start. The tour would have included a six night run at the Boston Garden, planned to be the final concerts ever held at the famous New England arena before its demolition. Instead, the venue had no special final concert: The last show there was a concert by [[Music/LedZeppelin Robert Plant and Jimmy Page]] a few months before Jerry's death.

* BannedInChina: The Dead were banned from performing in certain cities or at certain arenas, not because of the content of their music, but because venues simply couldn't handle the size of the band's travelling Deadhead fanbase. One of the sticking points for some venues was the famous "Shakedown Street" bazaar that fans would set up in the parking lot outside of Dead shows, and where t-shirts, food and drugs could easily be purchased. The NewbieBoom that stemmed from the success of their 1987 "Touch of Grey" single brought an unwanted, violent, party-animal element into their fanbase that also resulted in the band being asked to not play in some cities again. There was also an incident in the 1982, where the Dead were banned from playing at the Boston Garden because arena officials caught the band [[RoleEndingMisdemeanor grilling lobsters on a fire escape]] before a show. That ban was lifted in 1991, and the band played there regularly until frontman Jerry Garcia's death in 1995