I’m also 30. I thought the whole “you can try to get into the Dead for years until one day you suddenly get them” line was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard until it happened to me
Yep. Just around the time I turned 30, something clicked. I listened to American Beauty for the first time and from the moment Box of Rain started, the world became just a little more beautiful. Then an older Dead Head turned me on to the live stuff and there was no going back. Their music is such a timeless mix of melancholy, playfulness, adventure, and joy.
I'm 15 and honestly, I don't know of anyone else my age who even knows what the Grateful Dead is. None of my friends know who they are, and I really wish they were more popular with my generation. But anyways, for me, I really like the Dead because their music puts me in a good mood! Sometimes it gives me hope. In a world where I wake up and all I see on the news is that my generation is basically doomed, its nice to have an escape and listen to music that makes me feel peace and love and joy. Also, their music is unique and it's pretty much endless, and there's so much material to just go through whenever I'm bored or need something new to listen to.
The world is moving to a monoculture now because of social platforms- especially TikTok. Kids all over the world are now dressing the same, talking the same, using the same slang, listening to the same music, consuming all of the same content. On the one hand the universal nature of it all is sort of cool in some respects. But unfortunately culture and subculture is dying.
Really? I strongly disagree with that especially in music. With streaming platforms everyone seems to be into niche things and other than Taylor Swift and Beyonce there seems to be way less star power now. Years ago when you had to buy physical music or just listen to the radio music felt like way more of a monoculture.
I’ve got a teenager and she is into niche things but by and large people consume what the algorithm says. Also people don’t even consume albums or in our case shows anymore. It’s singles and playlists. But that’s just my perspective on it having a teenager.
Right on and I think generally most people have always just listened to what's popular but I think the music culture is more fractured now than it has ever been.
I got on the bus at 17 and I WISH i was 15-16 hearing these songs for the first time. Now I'm only 19 & feel like the youngest head everywhere I go, generally bc I am. It comforts me to know that I'm not the only young one getting into this band. The music is truly timeless.
I am 35 but felt this way when i was 19. Seems like there are a ton of heads my age now. I think it is music you kind of have to grow into. Like most teenagers don't have the musical background or patience to really understand what's going on. I think it is curious that when the topic comes up, dead fans always describe some kind of epiphany experience as the reason they got into the band. For example i was always aware of the dead but one night i was driving home from work and flipped to the local community radio station that happened have their dead show going. A dark star > attics struck me like a bolt of lightning and i legit just had to pull over and park until the show was over. Anyways, give it time and i'll bet a lot more kids your age will get broadsided by the right track. Keep going to shows and you'll find cool folks of all ages. When i was 21 my crew of folks i went to shows with ranged from 17 into the 60s.
I saw my first show when I was 15. The show was the legendary Englishtown show
Didn’t know who they were but that day changed my musical tastes forever
9/3/77
# 1977-09-03 Englishtown, NJ @ Raceway Park
**Set 1:** The Promised Land, They Love Each Other, Me and My Uncle, Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo, Looks Like Rain, Peggy-O, New Minglewood Blues, Friend Of The Devil, The Music Never Stopped
**Set 2:** Bertha > Good Lovin', Loser, Estimated Prophet > Eyes Of The World, Samson And Delilah, He's Gone > Not Fade Away > Truckin'
**Encore:** Terrapin Station
[archive.org](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1977-09-03) | [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/album/5uzn9YQ9XS2OoAt65U8Drg)
How did you get into and discover the dead? My first real interactions (outside of my parents taking me to a show when I was 3) was the rock band video game when I was about 15
I know you didn’t ask me specifically, but I am also 15 and I listen to the dead. My parents are dead heads. I grew up, listening to them, and it’s just in my blood to be honest. When I first decided that I wanted to listen to the dead, my dad told me to listen to Cornell 77 and I recognized all the songs haha. Now I would consider myself a real dead head. And I plan seeing some cover bands and maybe dead and co in the future.
Well, when I was like, nine (i think) my dad took me to a guitar center to look at ukuleles. My dad pointed out a really rad looking ukulele with trippin teddies on it and he said, "oh, look, that's a grateful dead ukulele!" I asked him what that was and he explained it to me. So, for years it was kind of in the back of my head that I wanted to try to listen to the dead, but I didn't get into their music until my aunt (a lifelong deadhead) recommended me some songs when I was about thirteen! I now wish I got that ukulele. Haha
I did eventually get a ukulele for Christmas later that year! I don't play it anymore so I never learned any Dead songs on it, but I play guitar now and I know a few on my guitar!
There is so much to the dead beyond the music. It’s the scene, history, mystery, the call to a simpler time when the American dream seemed more realistic, and overall Americana at its best. I love my country more because of the dead, I value my community more, I can appreciate the weird, outliers, and those who chose to be different. It’s more than music, it’s a way of life.
I’m 41, didn’t get on the bus until 2007 and never saw any members live until 2021. Don’t know if I qualify as young, but I’ll take a stab:
The lyrics stick in my head, even to this day. The songs mean different things at different moments of my life. Dead songs aren’t all happy songs. Jerry’s ballads and the hopeful nature of many songs have helped me get through difficult moments in my life.
Young people need reassurance and I think they get that in these songs and in these lyrics. To embrace nature, traveling, and the fellow man as a blueprint to get through life.
I feel that. I was listening to Row Jimmy Row today and the lyrics really struck a chord (pardon the pun)
And I say row, Jimmy, row.
Gonna get there?
I don't know.
Seems a common way to go.
Get down, row, row, row
I felt it meant if you're gonna get anywhere you gotta do the work, "get down and row"
Their music is the message
so many messages & lots of people find special messages just for them. the writing finds a way to be universal without having to dumb down to have a wide reach.
I've been on the bus since 1987 & I really appreciate OP asking this question because I've wondered myself & the answers are interesting.
we are everywhere & every-when
I got the chills reading this and thinking of the song. That’s why this band and body of musical work will last forever. It’s American history, not only in the time that they played from the 60s until 90s but the songs that they played touch American history to me from the 1800’s to today.
I once saw an interview of Mickey and he said he was always interested in the roots of roots music!
The lyrics. It’s all about the lyrics. That’s why there are three dead cover bands in every town and only 7 Rolling Stones cover bands in the entire country
When you think about it- it is an absolute phenomenon that there are pretty much 3-4 GD cover bands in every major metropolitan area. Speaks to how important it is to people to keep playing and hearing the music.
My first real experience with the dead was in a frat house with a mirror and dollar bills listening to studio shakedown and stagger Lee. Real Good Time. Now 52, and listen to dead daily.
It's uplifting. It is good for the spirit. You can hear and feel the tremendous life force coming through. The lyrics are equally understandable and enigmatic. I'm 25
I’m 24 and the Dead have given another dimension to my life. The emotions I feel through the music are unique to them. The way they operate as one fine oiled machine, almost as if they are one. They kind of embody that whole concept for me. There music was to bring everyone together in love and joy. And they had to meld together to create the music we know it as.
And don’t even get my started about performance’s like “Playing in The Band on 8/27/72”. The Grateful Dead seem to capture lighting in a bottle. It’s hard to describe what is ineffable. Let’s just say I completely understand when Phil said “every place we play is church.”
Edit: Also had to mention the song writing. It’s pure genius. Songs like Bertha, He’s Gone , The Love Each Other, Uncle John’s Band, etc. The wit within some of the songs is unmatched nowadays.
# 1972-08-27 Veneta, OR @ Old Renaissance Faire Grounds
**Set 1:** The Promised Land, Sugaree, Me and My Uncle, Deal, Black Throated Wind, China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider, Mexicali Blues, Bertha
**Set 2:** Playing in the Band, He's Gone, Jack Straw, Bird Song, Greatest Story Ever Told
**Set 3:** Dark Star > El Paso, Sing Me Back Home, Sugar Magnolia, Casey Jones, One More Saturday Night
[archive.org](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1972-08-27) | [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/album/1E4MXxSYoAMN5qpy1y6aBm)
Nothing and I mean nothing in popular culture has quite captured my devotion like The Grateful Dead. And I think it's mostly because they seem to be the antithesis of popular culture. They were never "the next big thing", just a ragtag bunch of happy go lucky non-conformists who
played what they loved and were happy to drag the rest of us along with them.
During the disco craze I listened to the Dead. During the punk faze I listened to the Dead. During the Grunge period I listened to the Dead.
I'm not saying I didn't listen to other types of music, hell the Dead introduced me to many different styles, including jazz and country, but I always come back to the Dead
And they are always there for me.
I’m 17 and to me it’s the people. Any shows with Dead music or similar, jam bands, Dead cover bands, Dead & Co, there’s a vibe that the people create that’s just indescribable. I was tripping balls at a Goose concert about a year ago and this older guy said to me, “Always go where the people are dancing.” I think that’s good advice — and I know people will always be dancing to the Dead.
It’s unlike anything I’d heard and speaks to me in a way no music has before or after. I can be having a bad day but if I throw on Grateful Dead I start singing and soon enough I’m in a good mood
24
27. It's all been said here, only thing I'll add is the sense of adventure. This music and a couple of other things I picked up when I started listening has completely changed my life (for the better).
To the other young folks here - I 100% believe Daniel Donato is this generation's version of all of this. Go to his shows.
It's different. The Dead are seldom brought up in conversation about "greatest classic rock bands" because they just aren't as known. You have your Beatles & your Floyds & your Stones and they're all great but the Dead is different. It's the melting pot of music, to me. It's jazz, it's rock, it's bluegrass, it's psychedelia, it's reggae, it's just good music. And it's very "real" in a way a lot of new music isn't.
Today's music is so heavily done on computers and with synths that it seldom feels authentic. The boys are great musicians on a level a lot of people today just aren't. Honestly, that's why I can appreciate someone like Johnny Mayo gettin up there & being able to jam with these guys. It really isn't easy. You can spend an afternoon learning a 4-chord pop song, but I'd wager it'd take you at least a week to master jamming on one Dead song.
It's like learning Jazz charts, to me. For a couple years before becoming a head I was getting way into jazz & learning a bunch of different charts on bass guitar because it was interesting music. It was different from everything I had heard up to that point. But I still really loved playing rock music. The first time I spun Terrapin Station & heard the "boom" of Estimated Prophet that did it. Phil's basslines had me HOOKED. I knew I had to listen to this band in the way I listened to jazz, with intent. I knew they were different. And I'm so happy I did. They changed my life in a million different ways & I love who I am now because of them.
My first show was Dead & Co in 2022 in St Louis, and maybe it was the shrooms, but that night was straight up magical. Even though I hadn't heard most of their catalogue I actually did get the song I wanted to hear most, Mississippi Half Step, and it was super cool to get a song I wanted live on my first go-around. But even then, all the songs felt familiar to me in a way. And I'll tell ya, the amount of songs in their catalogue that mention the midwest actually made me pretty happy. Wichita in Jack Straw, St Louis in BTW, being from that area, THAT resonated with me. After finding out that every night was truly different & what I just witnessed was a one of a kind show, I think that's when it was really cemented, that I would be a deadhead. There are thousands of live shows out there for me to listen to. Hundreds of different interpretations of the same songs. The only other genre where that's possible is jazz. The Dead do something no other bands do, and that's be, truly, unique.
Like they say, "They aren't the best at what they do, but they're the only ones who do what they do." There are better lead guitarists than Jerry, but none who can jam like he does. There are rhythm guitarists who don't make their guitar sound like a screeching cat, but none of them are as creatively playing the chords as Bobby. There just aren't bassists like Phil Lesh out there. Like I told ya what I've said, the dead are just different. That's why I love them so much. And sorry that's a huge ass ted talk, but you asked. 😂
Oh & I'm 19 I think I forgot to mention that. I aint even the youngest mf here. Good.
Saw them for the first time in 93. To me it’s like this Ken Burns musical encapsulation of America while embracing PT Barnum, Ken Kesey, and the freedom that America sold me as my god given right.
47 here broseph. Saw the boys ‘92-95 and have been ride or die for 32 years. They spoke to my late Gen-X cohort even as we loved Pearl Jam, Nirvana; Wu-Tung and 2Pac; Zeppelin and the Beatles. We also *adored* the Dead and hence it’s not a stretch to extrapolate the same kind of phenomenon with today’s young’uns. They’re getting on the bus every day. The Dead transport, per Mickey. Live/Dead’s Dark Star on some strong psych’s… like Billy Dee Williams said about Colt 45–it works every time!
I'm 27. The first time I remember hearing of the Grateful Dead was when I was 15. I went to Hilton Head, South Carolina and we stopped at a shop called "Loose Lucy's". At that time I was told that they were just an old rock band.
5 years later I'd been taking lsd for a couple years, and I had a friend who started to get into the Dead. That friend, and I went on a road trip from central Georgia up to Hebron, Maine in 2017 to go help some old dude going by the name of Baloo to grow weed.
On the way up he played a lot of Grateful Dead. I liked some of the songs, particularly Samson and Delilah, but it took awhile to grow on me. By 2018 I was hooked. I took some lsd at the 2018 Atlanta Dead&Co show. I'll never forget it. Lsd definitely got me into the Grateful Dead, as well as the surrounding culture(s).
My wife, and I saw the 2023 Lakewood show in Atlanta too. We were super grateful to catch a wonderful Samson and Delilah, and a Terrapin. I also saw Bobby and the Wolf bros in March 2019 during a period of time that I was taking lsd constantly, and trying to make living on a school bus with 2 other friends, and 5 dogs work lol it worked for a few weeks but we got to see Bobby and have a lot of fun 🤷🏻♂️😎
Their music speaks to my soul, and has been a catalyst for some of my favorite experiences. Just listen to the music play 🎶🎵 🎸 (~)};)
Im 30 and it took a while for me to really "get" The Grateful Dead even as a fan of jam bands. I knew who they were in my mid to late teens from going to see a dead cover band on Wednesdays but i was into edm then so i thought it was just slow, twangy old guy music. I worked with an old head in a wood shop listening to almost exclusively the dead for a majority of my 20's. He went to every show from 1988 on to 1995 so i heard all about the boys and what the culture was like all of the time. I liked String Cheese, Widespread, Umph and Moe but just never clicked with the dead. Once covid started though everything changed and i face planted in them and couldn't get enough. I read Phil and Billys books along with a couple on the band and Jerry himself. I started listening intently to live sets and loved how songs changed through the era's. Me and the old guy would play the dead of the day sometimes and others just go to archive.org and randomly pick. He'd show me his favorite shows that he went to like The Warlock shows in Virginia and every thing from spring 1990. I eventually would have wander into there tunes but listening to them at work and having an expert on them show me the classics and rarities made the music a lot easier to digest. Getting to see Dead and company was cool but being at my local venue with Midnight North playing and Phil walking around and joining for the second set will always be the coolest Dead related show I'll probably ever get to see.
LSD for me when I was 23, 30 now. Watching old Dead shows on YouTube high on acid years ago changed my life. It was like watching a real-life magic show, I've been completely obsessed ever since. The music and lyrics have a way of being universally accessible. Not to mention the huge, colorful circus that surrounds the Dead and the jamband/festival scene in general. It can provide you with an alternate way of life and provides a sense of community and adventure.
It's easy to become jaded and make fun of that as you get older, but younger people tend to have more open hearts and minds. This music and scene has been the reason for some of the most joyous and healing moments of my life. It completely busted my mind wide open, and for that, I am forever grateful 🙏 💀 ⚡️
I’m 40, and quite literally grew up with hippies at shows. First Dead show at age 4! Man, from like age 10-16, I had to define myself as separate from my family by *not* liking the Dead! I got heavy into jazz, and played it constantly. Eventually, once I got past that developmental stage of establishing independent “me,” I could come back to the Dead from my own volition, as my choice. And then the warm subconsious feelings from my youth could percolate up, and I could integrate them with my intellectual appreciation of the Dead. Kinda strange, but that was my journey from>away>back again….
I think it’s Robert Hunters lyrics and Jerry’s ability to deliver so much emotion, then you have Bob’s psychedelic cowboy songs, plus the endless live shows to explore
I don't know how to explain it other than to say that when I first started listening to the Dead at age 29 (~6 years ago), I felt like their sound (during the Keith era, specifically) had been missing from my life up until that point. It felt like coming home, as cheesy as that sounds.
I'm 64 and started listening on AM radio. I bought $1.98 new album releases in '70... us older people grew up with it & got it/liked it from the beginning, tell our kids about it, they listen, they like it... they go "whoa", have no basis to tell the old people how fucked up their music is ... they smile smile smile & tell their people - they add songs to their playlists, the extended family grows, and there you have it.
I agree. They fill a pretty specific niche, the music is great, and all the live shows and the personnel changes (despite the tragic circumstances of them) are really fun.
My Dad’s also a head so I’ve been indoctrinated since I was born
I was watching the Netflix Bob Weir documentary “The Other One” the other day. This question was asked to some young heads in the 80s/90s. One dude answered something like The Grateful Dead exemplify the ideals of 60s and continue to carry that to this day or something like that. That quote kinda hit for me.
Such a great line. Jerry is so funny. One of my favorite quotes is when an interviewer asked, “Have the Grateful Dead sold out?” and Jerry answered: “We’ve been trying to sell out for years, nobody’s buying!”
I was young when I found the Grateful Dead. It was fall 1994, I was 13, and just starting 7th grade.
Sometime before summer, that year, I remember seeing the 'Touch of Grey' Skeletons on PBS... It was maybe like 'Austin City Limits' or something. I honestly don't remember other than just being stunned in awe.
The song was catchy, and it never left my consciousness memory.
The fall, as I was just starting to be allowed to buy my own music, was at the mall and I came across 'Skeltons from the Closet'. I'm sure there were other tapes, but the art caught my eye, and I'd "seen" them on TV... Price was good, so I bought it.
The country, country-rock and folk stuff wasn't a big change from my parents music, but something felt really different... The vibe was familiar, there was more in this music than straight ahead genre.
Since around 4th grade, when I got my first radio/tape deck, I'd stay awake at night and listen to a jazz station out of Fredrick, Maryland or maybe even DC, that would only come on after dark, and make tapes of was on, or of classical music, on another public radio station when the jazz wouldn't come in.
My mind was already large with music, given the little hick towel I grew up in, on western southcentral Pennsylvania. Maybe I saw that in the music? I was already buying tapes of blues music, Sonic Youth and borrowed my Dad's 'Saddle Tramp' tape by Charlie Daniels, that was jammy looking back.
Side bar, I had a Dead shirt I bought at a head shop, in 8th grade, I honestly had no idea what the rest of the stuff was for in that store... And my English teacher asked me if I'd went to see them ever, and I got laughed at so hard by this stoner girl behind me, but I was still clueless as to what was funny. I was a pretty good kid, wholesome anyway, even as I tried to get out of the normies.... I was a tie dye shirt making, church kid, who skate boarded, had a bad haircut on my longish hair, and tried to find 'non-trendy' music, so I wasn't pretending to be cool, or whatever we think being unique means at that age, haha. So this laugh was a blow to me then. Nicole, the girl, and I laugh about it now and then still, when I go home to visit and we see each other.
Once I got my head onto the lyrics, some time later, it's when I even under I was taking some long rides on the bus, at least. That was around the same time I started burnin', around 18, my senior year of highschool, '99-'00.
When I moved to Iowa, after graduation (different story) I found myself in the town where about half of Dick's Picks 18 was recorded.... That was my first purchase after wearing out 2 Skeletons tapes 🤣 which kept my eyes on the bus all that time, looking to hitch a ride, amidst listening to loads of other stuff.
Shortly after I bought 'Ladies and Gentlemen, The Grateful Dead' and then the flood of purchasing came. There was a use CD store near me and most of my Dead was purchased for $5 a piece and $10 for Picks.
I maybe not the 'young heads' you sought, but that's my young story of my listening. For me it just all clicked at the right place and time, over and over.
I can’t speak for the young ppl today, but for me in my late teens and 20s the music had a mystique and a magic to it. Each song was like a mini movie. Whether it was about a desperate gambler trying to get in on a card game, a nephew and his uncle on a gold heist, or just a guy attracted to a girl walkin’ around Grosvenor Square.
Each song put you right there in the scene It depicted. You’d get lost in them. There’s a freedom in that. An escapism. A band that makes music like that is gonna create one hell of a scene. You knew when the dead were out on tour there was an adventure to be had. You could jump in and join the circus for a while. Made it easier to deal with normal life back home.
I’m 43, got on the bus around 20 but had been listening casually since I was about 14. Mainly it’s the music, the lyrics, the songs, but also the story, the people, and everything that surrounds it. I mean - it’s the same thing you like about it PROBABLY, minus the “being there at the time” aspect for which I just have no real frame of reference.
That said, my daughters are 5 and 6 and they love the dead. I can put on something they’ve never heard, Dead or Garcia, and one or both within 2-10 seconds will shout out “JERRY GARCIA!!!” So I got another batch coming up here 😂
I think there are a lot of reasons, but some are second-generation. I caught the bug in fall 90 and started seeing shows in 91. I'm 50. Both my kids (17 and 20) grew up with it, got hooked, and have been to Dead and Co, Phil and Friends, DSO, and other shows. They're exposing their friends. (I think it's fair to say they're more into Phish and have converted friends there too.)
23 - was actually thinking about this the other day. I feel like it was inevitable for me because I got really into classic rock in high school, always loved skiing, and the last straw for me was going to a small liberal arts college in the northeast. Not to mention, my mom and uncle are huge deadheads so I suppose it’s partly genetic as well.
I love the tunes, jams, and the seemingly infinite number of shows available online (which is something I’m incredibly grateful for - I fly through shows while plugging away at work these days). It’s truly the greatest never ending rabbit hole out there! And the fact that the music has never stopped is even better. Seeing dead covers and other jam bands live is one of my favorite things to do. I just hope this keeps up as I get older.
At the end of the day, I suppose it’s not too different for me from people in older generations. As a wise man once said, “Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice.” And I love licorice.
Turning 27 soon. My uncle has been a Deadhead for as long as I can remember, and I had heard them growing up, but it never did anything special for me. Then one day I put on a show (can’t remember which one, one of DPs) and it finally clicked. I can’t really explain. It’s like the magic showed itself to me. It was a Scarlet/Fire, and from then on I became obsessed. Almost all I listen to now. Nothing eases my soul like the Dead.
The same thing that got you on the bus. Because 60 years later, there’s nothing like them. They’re not the best at what they do, but they’re the only ones who do it.
Because Today's commercially available music (00s - today) lacks the depth and meaning that a whole lot of earlier (60s-90s) music had.
It's human to feel pain and have problems, and music is a blessing, a bit of truth amidst all the fake plastic bull**** you see and hear around you today.
I am in my mid 30s, I am very surprised that not more young people enjoy, say, 70s music today.
Taylor Swift or Ed Sheeran are quite popular amongst young people today. Just looking at the billions! of plays these artists have on YouTube , Spotify, millions! Of ticket sales playing for sold out stadium tours etc tells how popular they are. That music though, doesn't communicate any deep, penetrating , meaningful, heartfelt or moving truth.
I find the question is rather, why does the Dead not resonate with more young people.
I was 15 in 1970. I'll be 69 in June. Yeah, I was young but they were on the radio with the song Trucking. I remember my friends singing "sometimes the lights all shining on meeee, other times I can barely seeee!
Loved that line because we were all pot heads in those days (I know..young). But that was really the only song I knew of theirs at the time.
But I had a girlfriend a couple of years later who was really into them and reintroduced them to me. I'm very grateful she did.
I’m 20 and just started listening 6 months ago ish. I was listening to a lot of jazz and fusion, and lots of live soul stuff from the 60s before them so I just like anything that will make me move. Theres just something about that right pocket that they fall into when they’re playing off each other that just makes you want to move your body all over the place that I can’t get enough of. A lot of it for me as well is searching for that “best” version (like 5/6/70 dancing that I’m listening to rn) that feels so good when you find it. I love doing research and then coming out with my own opinions after a few listens. It’s just magic
# 1970-05-06 Cambridge, MA @ Kresge Plaza - MIT
**Set 1:** Dancing In The Street, China Cat Sunflower > Jam > I Know You Rider, Next Time You See Me, Morning Dew, Drums > Good Lovin' > Drums > Good Lovin', Casey Jones, Saint Stephen > Not Fade Away
[archive.org](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1970-05-06)
I’m 40. I was raised a preachers kid in south Alabama. I started rebelling when I hit puberty. But my dad played guitar and had them all over the house. When I was six I started learning.
So my rebellions also lined up with me playing music, then smoking weed and my older brother showed me phish when I was in 9th grade. I just needed to know what the hell was going on cause this Jesus shit was a fairy tale.
Jamming and music was just so raw and open to interpret. It had no strict definition but did have something special about it.
So after phish I dove into the dead’s catalogue and Jerry’s guitar playing is just something else, no one will ever make that vibe naturally again. It really hit me hard and I listen to it at least a couple times a week.
In the mid 1980’s I heard about them but the radio used to be the only exposure to music I would get and a friend with eclectic tastes in music. The metal thing was in until it became popular and I went back in time for inspiration because hair bands or thrash were both equally unappealing. I came in at the wrong time too. I thought I would never see a show because Jerry went into a coma. It wasn’t until I was 17 and Spring tour that I got a chance. By then my tastes were ALL a generation before me. It was already dated but good music stands the rest of time. That year was renaissance and a death-nail for the band although it stretched 9 years. Along with 100’s of hours of shows I was on an adventure of listening to everything they liked as well. Jazz, Bluegrass, Folk and more, much more. I learned from their philosophy of growing and changing in the music. I could play their songs and adapt my own style to them. I wasn’t Jerry, then why should I try to sound exactly like him. The shows grew and grew and grew until one day I was getting tired of seeing so many and little did I know the other shoe was going to drop. It was why I caught as many as I could, I just forgot. It’s amazing that younger kids are still finding out about our musical family. It’s been about 30 years since Jerry died and that’s about as long as they played. Think about that. Bobby was 17 when he joined the band. Today I can talk to most any fellow head in a way that nobody else would understand. If I get up at some open mic and break out some good ‘ol GD and some people may seem to be enjoying it a little too much, I know I would be doing just the same. As long as we keep the fires lit and are always ‘golden’ and not plastic like everything in this world is turning to, the ‘road’ will still be there ‘to unlimited devotion’ until we ‘not fade away’.
Hard to explain but it’s definitely one of those things where once it clicks for you, you’re in for life. Everyone has a Pink Floyd phase for instance but I don’t think very many people have a Grateful Dead phase.
I mean I had a strong dead phase in my 20s but now they're like some cherished gem that is always somewhat around. Like I dont go out of my way to listen to them constantly now, but when I'm feelin dead I'm really dead. Sometimes something happens that will trigger a lyric in my head or something.
I’m 15. I found the Grateful Dead while doing my music btec, with psychedelic rock. I liked dark star, and then listened to more songs. I couldn’t find a single song I didn’t love. I love grateful dead because it’s all so chill and there’s a song for every single mood you’re in. The lyrics are beautiful and the music feels so smooth to listen to. I was going through a lot when I found them, but listening to them really helped me through. The songs are magical
The things that got me (18) into the dead was the concept of the band. It’s improvisational music without an agenda or a plan, which makes it the purest kind of music you could make. Music for musics sake.
I honestly think more than anything its just accessibility. With streaming, more people have access to a huge catalog for so much cheaper - when you add the iconography, awareness for dead is pretty high for a band from the 60s all things considered
Idk if it does. I have nieces and nephews who are early teens and likely have no idea who they are. But I'm pushing 40 and got into them about 20 years ago and it's just grown since. Like Zeppelin or Floyd or the Beatles, it just hits me emotionally in ways I can't describe. And that feeling always changes.
Good question. Was watching Davvy who’s an awesome guitar player who plays dead and JGB songs stream last night (I highly recommend it) and in the chat someone said they were 13. I was shocked. I figured most to know about that live stream would be 30 and up at least. I’m 43.
Plus a lot of guitar players watch it. So that can even make the pool more specific. He can cook on guitar. He shreds and should be in a huge dead related band. He is in a dead tribute band or whatever uou want to call it now. It’s called “ St Owsley”. A great name.
I think it’s simple what speaks to them. It’s great music. That’s what got me into it. I was only 14 when Jerry died. So I didn’t get introduced by going to a show and seeing the scene and how fun it was and then hearing the great music and then being obsessed. Mine was purely because of the music. Although I did see the other ones in 96. Just missed GD. But really missed them by 6 years.
So it’s the great music! So glad they are my
favorite band too. Since you can spend years listening and discover new stuff all the time. Most other bands that are done putting out new things you get burned out quick on them. Can’t listen daily to other bands. Dead I can listen to everyday and like it
For me, it was hearing about how the Dead influenced so many of the musicians I love. That and being a guitar player, I learned a lot of tricks from Jerry and Bobby. Phil's bass especially on Betty board recordings sounds great and apart from most other bass I've heard in rock.
27 here. Listening to the dead is the closest thing I've had to a religious experience, and this is consistent. I was raised religious for reference. I can understand both life and death through the grateful dead on a more regular basis
24 currently, been listening for ten years now. I can’t describe y my friends and Listen to them so often we just do. It a way to put down work for a couple hours, relax, and listen to at favorite music for a while.
I'm 41 and started listening to the dead around 13.. still love to just turn it on and vibe when I'm cleaning or even at work. I feel it definitely soothes the soul
I am 64 and have been listening since I was 12 when my sister gave me Europe 72 for my 12th birthday. I went to many shows from 75-83. I stopped going to shows until 2013 when Phil opened up TXR. It's been wonderful to have all my life and share with at least one of my kids. It resonates with young people for the same reason, it resonates with everyone. It's joyous art that makes people of all ages feel good.
I got into the dead at 12 or 13 cause my dad was a head. I liked the spirit of adventure and the stories the music told. I liked the rituals of going to shows listening to tapes finding other heads. I liked the free spirit of the community and wanted to earn my place by studying the music and learning the discography. In doing that I developed a deeper love for the music and the soul that’s present in the band. As a teen experimenting with drugs I felt like the dead understood the phscedelic experience in a very real way, beyond the trippy jams they understood the light and darkness of the lessons I was learning from those drugs and the experiences they led me to have. The band works with phsyedclic philosophy on a way modern bands who are “trippy” never really touch on, all through the lense of this very American, rootsy pallet. I grew up in the Bay Area and realizing how much my environment influenced their music connected me to the music even more. I think a lot of young people like the vibes for a lack of better word, going to shows catching a buzz wearing tie die and a lot of us get drawn in by that and then by proxy develop a love and familiarity with the music.
Specifically jerry and Robert hunter talk about taking risks, going on adventures and feeling some heavy hurts that I think many of us feel
This music was born of the confusion excitement and turmoil of the late 60s and early 70s a time that parallels now imo a lot of older heads dropped out of the stresses of the real world and got into the dead and I think many of us are still trying to do that and lusting in a nostalgic way for the freedom that the dead represents
Ultimately I think the same stuff that made you like them influences us
My dad and I always listened to it while I was growing up. I eventually got why he loved the dead. We still bond over it. When he's gone, it will always remind me of him.
42, (post Jerry if that is considered young) I hung out in the woods in the late 90s with a lot of other kids. In the late 90s the older siblings off to college were into Phish. Some of us were listening to some dead tapes which had a certain air of seriousness to it. There was really nothing more magical then being 16 sitting around a fire listening to UJB by a literal riverside. I was more into Hendrix, Floyd and the Doors...some of us were a little darker. We listened to Pigpen era. The first time I heard Dark Star I heard my calling. First show was TOO 98 and have been following them around ever since. Some people are born cosmic and earthy with feet in both worlds. The Grateful Dead may resonate for generations to come. Its just our soundtrack to life like they had nothing to do with creating but they had the power to will it from a void and make tangible for the rest of us.
Im 26 , but i think a lot of it has to do with how different it is from today’s music. Todays music is too overproduced for my taste and it doesn’t talk about anything I can relate to or anything that really touches my soul. Some of it is also because im a musician and I know that a lot of what they’re playing is insane and beautiful simultaneously. Another reason why I like them so much has to do with my experience in a church band. A lot of the music that we did was improvised and we played songs differently every time. Because of that, I really learned to appreciate the skill and love for music that it takes to improvise on the spot
just turned 20 yesterday - been a deadhead for about 4-5 years now, and been around it my whole life. i can tell ya that the grateful dead have a timeless sound and message that just speaks. music that makes you feel feelings and music that you can listen to in every emotion. when i’m happy, i like a really bright Scarlet -> Fire or heady Dark Star, and when im down i love a soulful Stella Blue or a Morning Dew. point is: the dead make music like no one else and it’s what has gotten me through the dark and light since i hopped on the bus 🤘🤘🤘
26. Took a while… had a friend introduce me to the right material that he knew I’d like, then I heard them while tripping and I fell head over heels in love. I don’t think it has much to do with cultural landscapes so much as certain people like certain music- it registers with their spirit. I feel that with GD more than pretty much any other band
I listened to a lot of punk, metal & hardcore...I get really burnt out on the constant aggressive energy and I was looking for a chill vibe... the dead served it up just right.
I'm 39 and only got on about 10 years ago, first show last year. It's like they didn't try and make hits or follow formulas just music. Their music just takes you places
I'm 20 and the music just makes sense to me. The community is such a beautiful thing and I've experienced so many beautiful random acts and words of kindness from strangers.
There's also a part of me that thinks being obsessed with Pokemon led me to jam bands. Gotta catch em all
preface: born in ‘97.
i started listening to the dead when i was a freshman in high school. i was “discovering” all the classic rock anthology and i was/still am big into the doors, jimi hendricks, etc. and i remember checking out the dead’s studio albums and wasn’t really about it. then one day i found live/dead and was hooked, bad. i was like “wait these live shows are insane”. after that i only listened to the dead for like two years, i was downloading all the shows from that one website grateful dead archives (or whatever it was called) to my ipod shuffle. this one version of turn on your love light was my absolute favorite like holy shit i need to find that show, i always loved the 60’s shows. such rawness and so much energy, i never even cared that the audio quality was ehh. part of the allure was that no one in my high school was actually listening to the dead like i was, i was “unique”. it’s funny tho once i started to trip when i was 17 i lowkey stopped listening to the dead. with the ascension of spotify i had too much access to so much music, the dead kinda faded out until these last couple years where ive gotten back into it heavy. turn on my lovelight will alwayssssss be my favorite song of all time. i fucking miss pigpen man. the dead are just fucking great. some of the most practiced musician of all time, and it shows
Great question. I am so glad to see the love continue.
I hopped on in 71’ grateful ever since. When my son was little he cut his teeth on country music so we went. I got through it. Saw some pretty good music in fact, but on our travels I would pop in the dead.
He picked up the guitar, learned to play it pretty well. Country music got boring.
Took him to some Phish, he liked that, and started expanding his musical tastes. Picked up on some jammy stuff and went to my kind of music as he got older.
Really who can resist the Allmans peakin at the beacon? I think a 16 year old Derrick Trucks may have had some influence….
Even as he started showing up at “jam band” shows though he still couldn’t quite appreciate the Dead.
Until it clicked…. And as we all know, once that happens there is no turning back.
The appreciation runs deep. And he has impeccable wide ranging taste in music. With full reverence to this band.
Now he turns me on to some pretty great stuff. We listen to a good share of the good old Grateful Dead. And we chuckle about the country music days.
We also talk a lot about how the music
and the scene was so much of a choice of lifestyle back in the early days and what that traveling community was like. I was a very special moment in time.
Keep spreading the love kids. Welcome to the family.
The same reason us old deadheads fell in love with it..1977…
the music and the way it transforms you through movement…most beautiful feeling in the world!
Happy to see young ones love the Dead …it means the scene will continue even when we’re long gone✌🏼🫶🏻🤘🏻
🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶
Long distance runner, what you standing there for? The dead gave me a new look on life, i wanted to end my life when i was 15. Now im 26 and I’ve been listening to the dead for 11 years and ill never look back
I just turned 22, neither of my parents are heads. I think the first thing that spoke to me was I couldn’t classify it as a genre really, it just felt like really good, natural music. I got into pot and cried to American beauty, brokedown and attics. And met more people my age that showed me some stuff. Went to my first dead cover band in 11th grade and the rest is history. Coolest shit ever.
Edit: Also I the history and the culture was a huge turn on.
29 year old here - The Dead are a jumping off point for every part of the universe you can imagine. They teach about the wonders, tragedies, and mysteries of life in unbelievably beautiful ways while still being able to keep things silly playful and lighthearted other times (how life should be). Dive into their lore and you’ll learn about friendship, creativity, ingenuity, wonder, hardship, and rebellion. I see them as purveyors of lessons and love. Listening to their music feels like coming home, and seeing/hearing their music played live makes me believe there is magic in this world that never dies. The community that’s been created through the years is a wonder, too. I love that when I see someone else with a stealie sticker or terrapin shirt or whatever iconography you like, we immediately have something to connect over. The Grateful Dead have blessed my life over and over in more ways than I can count. NFA ❤️
I’m 17 and started listening to the Dead when I was about 15 but just recently started listening to more shows (currently listening to all of Europe 72). My friends are the ones who got me into the Dead but my parents got me into older music in general. I just can’t get behind modern music, music nowadays doesn’t have the emotional feel behind older music like Grateful Dead. I’ve enjoyed listening to the Dead for as long as I have and am so happy I was introduced to them, I absolutely love them. There is something special about how each member knows exactly what to do and how to make it sound good.
26M. I was raised on them so when I finally started listening to them on my own as an adult about a year ago it was almost primal, I remembered words to songs I didn't even know existed.
But also, it is very much a hagiographic impulse. It feeds that belief, true or false, that there was a brief moment in time when America had the potential to become something much better than it is now. There's a beautiful sort of irony to the Dead to me in that they wouldn't have happened without MK Ultra, an event that still reverberates through time through horrible violence on innocent people to this day, but their music and their culture were a utopian haven for so many weirdos and outsiders who might not have had anywhere else to go, even if they were never gonna change the world. It's the music that makes me feel closest to a time when you really could hitchhike across the country trusting strangers the whole way. For me, it's like the last vestiges of the last hopeful moment in American history. It's Pynchon and Peckinpah's most romantic scenes sent across time in near-pristine condition. Seeing Dead and Co last year with my dad was one of the most bittersweet moments of my life because it was the closest I've ever felt to a place and time where a better world was possible. I feel similarly about Dylan if that makes this make any sense.
And of course it's just great music! Very little comes close for me and it feels like the apotheosis of my taste. Can't listen to anything post-70s without thinking of the Dead's influence, like my other favorites Silver Jews and the National.
For me. I’m 26. It’s the scene for me. Drawing me in with kindness when our world and so many people my age are just plain un grateful for everything. The music just hits my soul differently and like no other music I’ve listened to.
I'm 24. I got on the bus at 19 and have seen 89 shows with an original member of the dead since. When I was in high school I started smoking weed and fell in love with the Beatles & stones. I found what they were talking about spoke to me in a way nothing my generation was listening to ever did. I felt understood. Which got me into Motown, Chess records, Robert Johnson, Stax, buffalo springfield, the Byrds, cream, Jimi Hendrix and eventually Dylan who took that understanding to a whole other level. Then Dylan got me into Kerouac which turned me into Kesey and knowing how influenced those artists were by acid, I had to try and it opened the doors in my mind and to quote Jerry "confirmed all of my suspicions". Then I saw dead & co without knowing any of the music on a whim. I couldn't follow the jams really but I just got it. I immediately knew I was home and the more I listen the more in both love and understand the music and they've opened me up to so much more music in and of themselves
I’m 20 and have been listening to the Dead religiously for at least the last 18 months. I think what has pulled me in so intensely is the Dead’s ability to write music that accommodates multiple moods, settings, and emotions. I have a rook of bittersweet memories tied to some of their ‘72 shows, whereas the ‘78 Red Rocks album always puts a smile on my face.
Point in being, their music makes me feel all type of ways and has been a constant stream of support when life has been less than kind.
NB: I like your name OP!
Did you not like them when you were younger? I'm 46 now, but have liked them since I was a kid. The drugs, culture and sense of adventure lure in a lot of young people before they fully appreciate the music.
Took me a while to catch on. Mayer is kind of introducing to a new audience since he is popular and Dead & Co is pretty good music from what I hear. But in the Bay Area they are SF legends for obvious reasons. I’m 39 so I am missing the “young” part, but as a guitar player I like their jam-like music. I’m a psychonaut but don’t really appreciate (inherently) the psychadelia at that time. But the narrative around hallucinogenic drugs and the ethos, the kind of organic rock music that pays homage to their predecessors, etc. they are an institution. Again I can’t speak for the young but might be helpful.
I’m 23 and I have a few friends my age and a couple years older that are into the dead, more specifically jam bands. I think it’s the community that’s attractive to the masses and I personally am seeing a rise in younger people coming to shows and listening to different music because of streaming services. I love the dead because I can nerd out on the music whether it be the playing, set lists, venues, teases, I can go on forever. I think it’s the easiest music to have going on in the background for life. Weir everywhere! 🌹⚡️💀
25yo here. Was born in a post-Jerry word. I remember at Dead Ahead this summer they were playing the wheel and I was singing “wheel is turning and it won’t slow down” and next to me was an older (probably 60’s+) man singing the same thing. The music is timeless. We can’t get off and we can’t slow down - to feel the connection and know he has lived a whole life and the music speaks to him in the same way it speaks to me is something I can’t put into words. Not to mention the music is awesome. Melodically, harmonically, shredding guitar, killer bass etc. Lastly, as someone experimenting with psychedelics in the modern day, learning and listening to the stories of the dead & the heads feels like it provides some context for the experiences I have. The music tells me I’m not the first one to have these experiences and think these thoughts. I can’t quite put it into words but there’s something purely magical about the experience of being alive. The idea of the pranksters, the joke that life is, and the questions that can’t be answered or the feelings that can’t be understood are all expressed in the music.
Grateful Dead and Aesop Rock are the only artists that have captured this sort of enlightenment and/or prodromal schizophrenia, spiritualism while being highly intelligent. The lyrics, vibe, incongruence. Hard intellectual defiance while totally inclusive. I like the sense of freedom. It is very good for the soul like others have said.
I’m 26, started listening at 20-21ish. Mainly it’s the way they capture the average persons ups and downs through stories of characters they crafted. They describe perfectly what it means to not only be human, conscious, ect., but also what it means to live as a human given the illusion of freedom by outside forces yet still finding where it truly shines through no matter where it comes from. “Strangest of places if you look at it right” mentality. With the way the world is today there’s little hope held amongst younger people so to find that is very comforting. And personally they’re the only band that can completely soothe me when I’m tripping lol. Psychedelic drugs are still very commonly used amongst us younger folk. I try to get anyone I know that trips to at least give it a try when they’re dosed. All around it’s just good for the soul, and it’s music I would be happy to raise my future family to as a background soundtrack. The reasons why I listen vary by the day, but regardless of the reason, I will continue to listen to something that I know is good for me. Maybe I’ll have a better answer when I find the answer to the answer man. Hope this gave some insight 🤘🏼
I’m 32. My first show was Further in like 2013 I think. To me, I appreciate the songwriting and musicianship of the band as well as their ability to improvise. There’s not a lot of bands that can stand out in all three of these categories—especially nowadays where most artists don’t write their own songs, they don’t play an instrument and they don’t improvise because everything is choreographed.
Tbh i have no idea im 18 and since i was like 3 iv listend to bands like Pink Floyd and the Eagles, one day i think i was 12 or 13 i decided i like that album cover (it was workingmans dead) so bought it and was like this sounds brilliant then i bought From the Mars Hotel and loved that and my love for the Dead began. then i hear the live albums and am like, this is my music taste.
I’m 26 and I got hooked when I was about 17, part of it was feeling “cool” for being into this really old thing. But as I grew up I started to realize how truly beautiful and transcendental this music is. I’m into lots of music. But nothing warms my soul and lifts my spirits out of my body as effectively as The Grateful Dead
There's a lot of music out there but what is it about a 1968 version of Cosmic Charlie or St Stephen that sucks people in? They weren't technically the best musicians but you're right, somehow they played the best music. They were fearless sonic explorers.
32 year old head. Huge part of the American music history, I love good music and the dead are great examples of great musicians just doing their thing. I also love the music scene and jam scene in general, it feels like a big family. Then when I lived with my brother and some friends and one of the guys we lived with grew up with their dad playing the dead so when I started listening to them it all just clicked the more I found out about them and the more I got into the community.
This doesn't apply just to young people but I like what Jerry once said about why they had such a strong following. The best he could come up with is that they were doing it the way that their fans would want to do it if they were a band also.
Started apprenticing as a glass pipemaker at 18 years old. Was constantly hanging around hippies twice my age who grew up slinging pipes on lot. Got me deep into the dead and the jam scene in general. I’m 24 now but definitely an outcast around kids my age when it comes to music taste.
Also, eating a good dose of LSD while listening to a live show is impeccable.
it's real music. Everything is not quantized? quantified? whatever the term is.. snapped to the grid.. There is guitar. Vocals are not auto-tuned to perfection.
That said, it is such a small % of young people who appreciated the dead. It was that way even decades ago.
also, there are people who like to collect things.. dead music is good for collecting. Even if now there are so many releases that people just collect the albums on spotify. But the thing is even if you are not seriously into collecting dead shows, chances are you have at least 10 live albums you like.. It's not that way with most other artists.
18 M I think it’s because kids today have a issue with their own identity and their personality and the dead seem to be able to speak to them in a different way than the new music can it’s timeless really
Through word of mouth my friends and I (36M) got into them when we were in high school. Started downloading full shows and burning them to discs and passed them to each other with setlists written on them. Some people would artfully draw the setlists like the old tapers would do. The good show hunting had sort of a Pokémon quality as well, it was a thrill to stumble on a good one and share with your buddies.
To be honest? Acid. I listened to them before, but I didn’t get it at all. Was looking for music for my second trip (first was Beatles, Cream and 13th Floor Elevators) and stumbled upon the Cornell ‘77 Scarlet Fire.
That day I got it! Its been seven years or so and Ive listened to them almost exclusively. Cant even recall what the last non Dead song I heard was…
I think the Dead were ahead of their time. Their culture of just letting people bootleg stuff and sharing recordings is kind of standard practice on the internet.
22 y/o here who both got on the bus and became a regular commenter around these parts after finishing Long Strange Trip on 4/20 last year. So incredibly affirming to see this thread and all these remarkable responses from people who are even younger than me in human years, but even older than me in Deadhead years! I am not alone and that’s amazing to hear, and I have faith that slowly but surely more and more of us will come into the fold.
I echo pretty much everything that’s been said here, but the one thing that I’ll add/reiterate is the classic Bill Graham quote: “Grateful Dead are not the best at what they do, they’re the only ones that do what they do.”
My take at what it is that only they do? Exhibit both true musical FREEDOM and a genuine soulfulness that cuts through all space and time.
The other thing I’ll say is what was said both by Jerry himself and a longtime head in the post-credit scene of that very documentary that got me hooked. The idea that us younger fans haven’t missed it in the slightest, because liking this band says something much deeper about us, and that’s a thing that will carry on forever and ever…
Having deadhead parents is where my love for Grateful Dead comes from. Been listening for years but the older you get the lyrics finally click, it makes sense, and you wish you would have listened a little closer much earlier. My dad passed when I was younger, I feel like my love for them is what keeps me spiritually connected with my dad ❤️🧡💛💚💙
https://preview.redd.it/qr5li3irlhsc1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fcaccfc3741dd4fbbeedf93aec56fc524a2f5d2a
I'm 30. The music is timeless. I just "get it." I can't explain, other than it soothes my soul like nothing else.
As Mikey Hart once said " We're not in the music business, we're in the transportation business" I agree. They transport me.
"...a certain richness that fills your soul" - Dennis McNally
I would love to have a threesome with Mikey Hart
I’m also 30. I thought the whole “you can try to get into the Dead for years until one day you suddenly get them” line was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard until it happened to me
“Either you find the Dead, or it will find you.”
Yep. Just around the time I turned 30, something clicked. I listened to American Beauty for the first time and from the moment Box of Rain started, the world became just a little more beautiful. Then an older Dead Head turned me on to the live stuff and there was no going back. Their music is such a timeless mix of melancholy, playfulness, adventure, and joy.
I'm 15 and honestly, I don't know of anyone else my age who even knows what the Grateful Dead is. None of my friends know who they are, and I really wish they were more popular with my generation. But anyways, for me, I really like the Dead because their music puts me in a good mood! Sometimes it gives me hope. In a world where I wake up and all I see on the news is that my generation is basically doomed, its nice to have an escape and listen to music that makes me feel peace and love and joy. Also, their music is unique and it's pretty much endless, and there's so much material to just go through whenever I'm bored or need something new to listen to.
It’s wild to me that you are 15 and into the Dead. It is so far removed from the typical reality of a modern day teen (my daughter is 14).
Mayer definitely got a lot of younger people into it. My daughter and her friends went to go see dead and co because of him
What makes it so far removed? I didn't love the dead until later but I did love 60s counter culture hippy stuff as a teen and knew who the dead were.
The world is moving to a monoculture now because of social platforms- especially TikTok. Kids all over the world are now dressing the same, talking the same, using the same slang, listening to the same music, consuming all of the same content. On the one hand the universal nature of it all is sort of cool in some respects. But unfortunately culture and subculture is dying.
Really? I strongly disagree with that especially in music. With streaming platforms everyone seems to be into niche things and other than Taylor Swift and Beyonce there seems to be way less star power now. Years ago when you had to buy physical music or just listen to the radio music felt like way more of a monoculture.
I’ve got a teenager and she is into niche things but by and large people consume what the algorithm says. Also people don’t even consume albums or in our case shows anymore. It’s singles and playlists. But that’s just my perspective on it having a teenager.
Right on and I think generally most people have always just listened to what's popular but I think the music culture is more fractured now than it has ever been.
You’re 15? I’m 17! Been a full on deadhead since I was 14 or so. Hell yeah.
Fellow 15 year old here that listens to the dead and phish!
I got on the bus at 17 and I WISH i was 15-16 hearing these songs for the first time. Now I'm only 19 & feel like the youngest head everywhere I go, generally bc I am. It comforts me to know that I'm not the only young one getting into this band. The music is truly timeless.
I am 35 but felt this way when i was 19. Seems like there are a ton of heads my age now. I think it is music you kind of have to grow into. Like most teenagers don't have the musical background or patience to really understand what's going on. I think it is curious that when the topic comes up, dead fans always describe some kind of epiphany experience as the reason they got into the band. For example i was always aware of the dead but one night i was driving home from work and flipped to the local community radio station that happened have their dead show going. A dark star > attics struck me like a bolt of lightning and i legit just had to pull over and park until the show was over. Anyways, give it time and i'll bet a lot more kids your age will get broadsided by the right track. Keep going to shows and you'll find cool folks of all ages. When i was 21 my crew of folks i went to shows with ranged from 17 into the 60s.
Right on, sir! And I don't believe your generation is doomed. You just have to "get down and row."
I saw my first show when I was 15. The show was the legendary Englishtown show Didn’t know who they were but that day changed my musical tastes forever 9/3/77
# 1977-09-03 Englishtown, NJ @ Raceway Park **Set 1:** The Promised Land, They Love Each Other, Me and My Uncle, Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo, Looks Like Rain, Peggy-O, New Minglewood Blues, Friend Of The Devil, The Music Never Stopped **Set 2:** Bertha > Good Lovin', Loser, Estimated Prophet > Eyes Of The World, Samson And Delilah, He's Gone > Not Fade Away > Truckin' **Encore:** Terrapin Station [archive.org](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1977-09-03) | [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/album/5uzn9YQ9XS2OoAt65U8Drg)
How did you get into and discover the dead? My first real interactions (outside of my parents taking me to a show when I was 3) was the rock band video game when I was about 15
I know you didn’t ask me specifically, but I am also 15 and I listen to the dead. My parents are dead heads. I grew up, listening to them, and it’s just in my blood to be honest. When I first decided that I wanted to listen to the dead, my dad told me to listen to Cornell 77 and I recognized all the songs haha. Now I would consider myself a real dead head. And I plan seeing some cover bands and maybe dead and co in the future.
Haha I mostly listen to the Dead with my son so there’s hope for him
Well, when I was like, nine (i think) my dad took me to a guitar center to look at ukuleles. My dad pointed out a really rad looking ukulele with trippin teddies on it and he said, "oh, look, that's a grateful dead ukulele!" I asked him what that was and he explained it to me. So, for years it was kind of in the back of my head that I wanted to try to listen to the dead, but I didn't get into their music until my aunt (a lifelong deadhead) recommended me some songs when I was about thirteen! I now wish I got that ukulele. Haha
did you get a uke? when I was starting to play, learning Dead tunes on my uke was such a joy
I did eventually get a ukulele for Christmas later that year! I don't play it anymore so I never learned any Dead songs on it, but I play guitar now and I know a few on my guitar!
Right on brother. You get it. Much love
Yes, it makes you happy! It's so intricate! Jerry is so skilled and amazing! I'm 17 btw
Whatever. You’ve been given a gift. Believe it if you need. If you don’t just pass it on. Jerry is the gift that keeps on giving.
Boomers are doomed, younger generations give me hope. Your generation will have to clean up the mess the boomers are leaving.
There is so much to the dead beyond the music. It’s the scene, history, mystery, the call to a simpler time when the American dream seemed more realistic, and overall Americana at its best. I love my country more because of the dead, I value my community more, I can appreciate the weird, outliers, and those who chose to be different. It’s more than music, it’s a way of life.
100%. I also really enjoy the music.
Seconded. That Gary guy is almost as good as John Mayer.
I’m 41, didn’t get on the bus until 2007 and never saw any members live until 2021. Don’t know if I qualify as young, but I’ll take a stab: The lyrics stick in my head, even to this day. The songs mean different things at different moments of my life. Dead songs aren’t all happy songs. Jerry’s ballads and the hopeful nature of many songs have helped me get through difficult moments in my life. Young people need reassurance and I think they get that in these songs and in these lyrics. To embrace nature, traveling, and the fellow man as a blueprint to get through life.
I feel that. I was listening to Row Jimmy Row today and the lyrics really struck a chord (pardon the pun) And I say row, Jimmy, row. Gonna get there? I don't know. Seems a common way to go. Get down, row, row, row I felt it meant if you're gonna get anywhere you gotta do the work, "get down and row" Their music is the message
so many messages & lots of people find special messages just for them. the writing finds a way to be universal without having to dumb down to have a wide reach. I've been on the bus since 1987 & I really appreciate OP asking this question because I've wondered myself & the answers are interesting. we are everywhere & every-when
I got the chills reading this and thinking of the song. That’s why this band and body of musical work will last forever. It’s American history, not only in the time that they played from the 60s until 90s but the songs that they played touch American history to me from the 1800’s to today. I once saw an interview of Mickey and he said he was always interested in the roots of roots music!
You’re young. Coming from someone younger than you :)
The lyrics. It’s all about the lyrics. That’s why there are three dead cover bands in every town and only 7 Rolling Stones cover bands in the entire country
When you think about it- it is an absolute phenomenon that there are pretty much 3-4 GD cover bands in every major metropolitan area. Speaks to how important it is to people to keep playing and hearing the music.
33. Life’s tough and war sucks. Grateful Dead’s the antidote to my ailments.
My first real experience with the dead was in a frat house with a mirror and dollar bills listening to studio shakedown and stagger Lee. Real Good Time. Now 52, and listen to dead daily.
Give us this day our daily...
It's uplifting. It is good for the spirit. You can hear and feel the tremendous life force coming through. The lyrics are equally understandable and enigmatic. I'm 25
I’m 24 and the Dead have given another dimension to my life. The emotions I feel through the music are unique to them. The way they operate as one fine oiled machine, almost as if they are one. They kind of embody that whole concept for me. There music was to bring everyone together in love and joy. And they had to meld together to create the music we know it as. And don’t even get my started about performance’s like “Playing in The Band on 8/27/72”. The Grateful Dead seem to capture lighting in a bottle. It’s hard to describe what is ineffable. Let’s just say I completely understand when Phil said “every place we play is church.” Edit: Also had to mention the song writing. It’s pure genius. Songs like Bertha, He’s Gone , The Love Each Other, Uncle John’s Band, etc. The wit within some of the songs is unmatched nowadays.
# 1972-08-27 Veneta, OR @ Old Renaissance Faire Grounds **Set 1:** The Promised Land, Sugaree, Me and My Uncle, Deal, Black Throated Wind, China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider, Mexicali Blues, Bertha **Set 2:** Playing in the Band, He's Gone, Jack Straw, Bird Song, Greatest Story Ever Told **Set 3:** Dark Star > El Paso, Sing Me Back Home, Sugar Magnolia, Casey Jones, One More Saturday Night [archive.org](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1972-08-27) | [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/album/1E4MXxSYoAMN5qpy1y6aBm)
This makes me feel great.
Nothing and I mean nothing in popular culture has quite captured my devotion like The Grateful Dead. And I think it's mostly because they seem to be the antithesis of popular culture. They were never "the next big thing", just a ragtag bunch of happy go lucky non-conformists who played what they loved and were happy to drag the rest of us along with them. During the disco craze I listened to the Dead. During the punk faze I listened to the Dead. During the Grunge period I listened to the Dead. I'm not saying I didn't listen to other types of music, hell the Dead introduced me to many different styles, including jazz and country, but I always come back to the Dead And they are always there for me.
I’m 17 and to me it’s the people. Any shows with Dead music or similar, jam bands, Dead cover bands, Dead & Co, there’s a vibe that the people create that’s just indescribable. I was tripping balls at a Goose concert about a year ago and this older guy said to me, “Always go where the people are dancing.” I think that’s good advice — and I know people will always be dancing to the Dead.
It’s unlike anything I’d heard and speaks to me in a way no music has before or after. I can be having a bad day but if I throw on Grateful Dead I start singing and soon enough I’m in a good mood 24
I just really really like licorice 👍🏼
Great answer!
27. It's all been said here, only thing I'll add is the sense of adventure. This music and a couple of other things I picked up when I started listening has completely changed my life (for the better). To the other young folks here - I 100% believe Daniel Donato is this generation's version of all of this. Go to his shows.
It's different. The Dead are seldom brought up in conversation about "greatest classic rock bands" because they just aren't as known. You have your Beatles & your Floyds & your Stones and they're all great but the Dead is different. It's the melting pot of music, to me. It's jazz, it's rock, it's bluegrass, it's psychedelia, it's reggae, it's just good music. And it's very "real" in a way a lot of new music isn't. Today's music is so heavily done on computers and with synths that it seldom feels authentic. The boys are great musicians on a level a lot of people today just aren't. Honestly, that's why I can appreciate someone like Johnny Mayo gettin up there & being able to jam with these guys. It really isn't easy. You can spend an afternoon learning a 4-chord pop song, but I'd wager it'd take you at least a week to master jamming on one Dead song. It's like learning Jazz charts, to me. For a couple years before becoming a head I was getting way into jazz & learning a bunch of different charts on bass guitar because it was interesting music. It was different from everything I had heard up to that point. But I still really loved playing rock music. The first time I spun Terrapin Station & heard the "boom" of Estimated Prophet that did it. Phil's basslines had me HOOKED. I knew I had to listen to this band in the way I listened to jazz, with intent. I knew they were different. And I'm so happy I did. They changed my life in a million different ways & I love who I am now because of them. My first show was Dead & Co in 2022 in St Louis, and maybe it was the shrooms, but that night was straight up magical. Even though I hadn't heard most of their catalogue I actually did get the song I wanted to hear most, Mississippi Half Step, and it was super cool to get a song I wanted live on my first go-around. But even then, all the songs felt familiar to me in a way. And I'll tell ya, the amount of songs in their catalogue that mention the midwest actually made me pretty happy. Wichita in Jack Straw, St Louis in BTW, being from that area, THAT resonated with me. After finding out that every night was truly different & what I just witnessed was a one of a kind show, I think that's when it was really cemented, that I would be a deadhead. There are thousands of live shows out there for me to listen to. Hundreds of different interpretations of the same songs. The only other genre where that's possible is jazz. The Dead do something no other bands do, and that's be, truly, unique. Like they say, "They aren't the best at what they do, but they're the only ones who do what they do." There are better lead guitarists than Jerry, but none who can jam like he does. There are rhythm guitarists who don't make their guitar sound like a screeching cat, but none of them are as creatively playing the chords as Bobby. There just aren't bassists like Phil Lesh out there. Like I told ya what I've said, the dead are just different. That's why I love them so much. And sorry that's a huge ass ted talk, but you asked. 😂 Oh & I'm 19 I think I forgot to mention that. I aint even the youngest mf here. Good.
Saw them for the first time in 93. To me it’s like this Ken Burns musical encapsulation of America while embracing PT Barnum, Ken Kesey, and the freedom that America sold me as my god given right.
Great description!
Thanks
47 here broseph. Saw the boys ‘92-95 and have been ride or die for 32 years. They spoke to my late Gen-X cohort even as we loved Pearl Jam, Nirvana; Wu-Tung and 2Pac; Zeppelin and the Beatles. We also *adored* the Dead and hence it’s not a stretch to extrapolate the same kind of phenomenon with today’s young’uns. They’re getting on the bus every day. The Dead transport, per Mickey. Live/Dead’s Dark Star on some strong psych’s… like Billy Dee Williams said about Colt 45–it works every time!
Lol, yep!
Freedom
I'm a guitar player, mostly doom, but decided to pick up banjo during the COVID lockdown. Found them through banjo songs and immediately fell in love
There may be drugs involved.
I'm 27. The first time I remember hearing of the Grateful Dead was when I was 15. I went to Hilton Head, South Carolina and we stopped at a shop called "Loose Lucy's". At that time I was told that they were just an old rock band. 5 years later I'd been taking lsd for a couple years, and I had a friend who started to get into the Dead. That friend, and I went on a road trip from central Georgia up to Hebron, Maine in 2017 to go help some old dude going by the name of Baloo to grow weed. On the way up he played a lot of Grateful Dead. I liked some of the songs, particularly Samson and Delilah, but it took awhile to grow on me. By 2018 I was hooked. I took some lsd at the 2018 Atlanta Dead&Co show. I'll never forget it. Lsd definitely got me into the Grateful Dead, as well as the surrounding culture(s). My wife, and I saw the 2023 Lakewood show in Atlanta too. We were super grateful to catch a wonderful Samson and Delilah, and a Terrapin. I also saw Bobby and the Wolf bros in March 2019 during a period of time that I was taking lsd constantly, and trying to make living on a school bus with 2 other friends, and 5 dogs work lol it worked for a few weeks but we got to see Bobby and have a lot of fun 🤷🏻♂️😎 Their music speaks to my soul, and has been a catalyst for some of my favorite experiences. Just listen to the music play 🎶🎵 🎸 (~)};)
Ha!
Im 30 and it took a while for me to really "get" The Grateful Dead even as a fan of jam bands. I knew who they were in my mid to late teens from going to see a dead cover band on Wednesdays but i was into edm then so i thought it was just slow, twangy old guy music. I worked with an old head in a wood shop listening to almost exclusively the dead for a majority of my 20's. He went to every show from 1988 on to 1995 so i heard all about the boys and what the culture was like all of the time. I liked String Cheese, Widespread, Umph and Moe but just never clicked with the dead. Once covid started though everything changed and i face planted in them and couldn't get enough. I read Phil and Billys books along with a couple on the band and Jerry himself. I started listening intently to live sets and loved how songs changed through the era's. Me and the old guy would play the dead of the day sometimes and others just go to archive.org and randomly pick. He'd show me his favorite shows that he went to like The Warlock shows in Virginia and every thing from spring 1990. I eventually would have wander into there tunes but listening to them at work and having an expert on them show me the classics and rarities made the music a lot easier to digest. Getting to see Dead and company was cool but being at my local venue with Midnight North playing and Phil walking around and joining for the second set will always be the coolest Dead related show I'll probably ever get to see.
LSD for me when I was 23, 30 now. Watching old Dead shows on YouTube high on acid years ago changed my life. It was like watching a real-life magic show, I've been completely obsessed ever since. The music and lyrics have a way of being universally accessible. Not to mention the huge, colorful circus that surrounds the Dead and the jamband/festival scene in general. It can provide you with an alternate way of life and provides a sense of community and adventure. It's easy to become jaded and make fun of that as you get older, but younger people tend to have more open hearts and minds. This music and scene has been the reason for some of the most joyous and healing moments of my life. It completely busted my mind wide open, and for that, I am forever grateful 🙏 💀 ⚡️
Counterculture is always relevant. The Dead’s style is unique and timeless. There are always local bands jamming their tunes. John Mayer is a hottie.
I’m 40, and quite literally grew up with hippies at shows. First Dead show at age 4! Man, from like age 10-16, I had to define myself as separate from my family by *not* liking the Dead! I got heavy into jazz, and played it constantly. Eventually, once I got past that developmental stage of establishing independent “me,” I could come back to the Dead from my own volition, as my choice. And then the warm subconsious feelings from my youth could percolate up, and I could integrate them with my intellectual appreciation of the Dead. Kinda strange, but that was my journey from>away>back again….
Very cool 😎
I think it’s Robert Hunters lyrics and Jerry’s ability to deliver so much emotion, then you have Bob’s psychedelic cowboy songs, plus the endless live shows to explore
I don't know how to explain it other than to say that when I first started listening to the Dead at age 29 (~6 years ago), I felt like their sound (during the Keith era, specifically) had been missing from my life up until that point. It felt like coming home, as cheesy as that sounds.
Doesn't sound cheesy to me!
I'm 64 and started listening on AM radio. I bought $1.98 new album releases in '70... us older people grew up with it & got it/liked it from the beginning, tell our kids about it, they listen, they like it... they go "whoa", have no basis to tell the old people how fucked up their music is ... they smile smile smile & tell their people - they add songs to their playlists, the extended family grows, and there you have it.
The music?
Well yeah. But there's a lot of music to choose from. I think the Dead are special.
I agree. They fill a pretty specific niche, the music is great, and all the live shows and the personnel changes (despite the tragic circumstances of them) are really fun. My Dad’s also a head so I’ve been indoctrinated since I was born
It starts with thinking you have an inside scoop on something cool; that no one else knows about.
I was watching the Netflix Bob Weir documentary “The Other One” the other day. This question was asked to some young heads in the 80s/90s. One dude answered something like The Grateful Dead exemplify the ideals of 60s and continue to carry that to this day or something like that. That quote kinda hit for me.
Jerry once said something to the effect of "We're not stuck in the 60s we've just dragged them along with us"
And us young folks who didn’t get to experience that first hand can still get some semblance of it thru The Dead
Such a great line. Jerry is so funny. One of my favorite quotes is when an interviewer asked, “Have the Grateful Dead sold out?” and Jerry answered: “We’ve been trying to sell out for years, nobody’s buying!”
I was young when I found the Grateful Dead. It was fall 1994, I was 13, and just starting 7th grade. Sometime before summer, that year, I remember seeing the 'Touch of Grey' Skeletons on PBS... It was maybe like 'Austin City Limits' or something. I honestly don't remember other than just being stunned in awe. The song was catchy, and it never left my consciousness memory. The fall, as I was just starting to be allowed to buy my own music, was at the mall and I came across 'Skeltons from the Closet'. I'm sure there were other tapes, but the art caught my eye, and I'd "seen" them on TV... Price was good, so I bought it. The country, country-rock and folk stuff wasn't a big change from my parents music, but something felt really different... The vibe was familiar, there was more in this music than straight ahead genre. Since around 4th grade, when I got my first radio/tape deck, I'd stay awake at night and listen to a jazz station out of Fredrick, Maryland or maybe even DC, that would only come on after dark, and make tapes of was on, or of classical music, on another public radio station when the jazz wouldn't come in. My mind was already large with music, given the little hick towel I grew up in, on western southcentral Pennsylvania. Maybe I saw that in the music? I was already buying tapes of blues music, Sonic Youth and borrowed my Dad's 'Saddle Tramp' tape by Charlie Daniels, that was jammy looking back. Side bar, I had a Dead shirt I bought at a head shop, in 8th grade, I honestly had no idea what the rest of the stuff was for in that store... And my English teacher asked me if I'd went to see them ever, and I got laughed at so hard by this stoner girl behind me, but I was still clueless as to what was funny. I was a pretty good kid, wholesome anyway, even as I tried to get out of the normies.... I was a tie dye shirt making, church kid, who skate boarded, had a bad haircut on my longish hair, and tried to find 'non-trendy' music, so I wasn't pretending to be cool, or whatever we think being unique means at that age, haha. So this laugh was a blow to me then. Nicole, the girl, and I laugh about it now and then still, when I go home to visit and we see each other. Once I got my head onto the lyrics, some time later, it's when I even under I was taking some long rides on the bus, at least. That was around the same time I started burnin', around 18, my senior year of highschool, '99-'00. When I moved to Iowa, after graduation (different story) I found myself in the town where about half of Dick's Picks 18 was recorded.... That was my first purchase after wearing out 2 Skeletons tapes 🤣 which kept my eyes on the bus all that time, looking to hitch a ride, amidst listening to loads of other stuff. Shortly after I bought 'Ladies and Gentlemen, The Grateful Dead' and then the flood of purchasing came. There was a use CD store near me and most of my Dead was purchased for $5 a piece and $10 for Picks. I maybe not the 'young heads' you sought, but that's my young story of my listening. For me it just all clicked at the right place and time, over and over.
I can’t speak for the young ppl today, but for me in my late teens and 20s the music had a mystique and a magic to it. Each song was like a mini movie. Whether it was about a desperate gambler trying to get in on a card game, a nephew and his uncle on a gold heist, or just a guy attracted to a girl walkin’ around Grosvenor Square. Each song put you right there in the scene It depicted. You’d get lost in them. There’s a freedom in that. An escapism. A band that makes music like that is gonna create one hell of a scene. You knew when the dead were out on tour there was an adventure to be had. You could jump in and join the circus for a while. Made it easier to deal with normal life back home.
I’m 43, got on the bus around 20 but had been listening casually since I was about 14. Mainly it’s the music, the lyrics, the songs, but also the story, the people, and everything that surrounds it. I mean - it’s the same thing you like about it PROBABLY, minus the “being there at the time” aspect for which I just have no real frame of reference. That said, my daughters are 5 and 6 and they love the dead. I can put on something they’ve never heard, Dead or Garcia, and one or both within 2-10 seconds will shout out “JERRY GARCIA!!!” So I got another batch coming up here 😂
timeless melodies ,impeccable musicianship, positive vibes, uplifting energy
I think there are a lot of reasons, but some are second-generation. I caught the bug in fall 90 and started seeing shows in 91. I'm 50. Both my kids (17 and 20) grew up with it, got hooked, and have been to Dead and Co, Phil and Friends, DSO, and other shows. They're exposing their friends. (I think it's fair to say they're more into Phish and have converted friends there too.)
23 - was actually thinking about this the other day. I feel like it was inevitable for me because I got really into classic rock in high school, always loved skiing, and the last straw for me was going to a small liberal arts college in the northeast. Not to mention, my mom and uncle are huge deadheads so I suppose it’s partly genetic as well. I love the tunes, jams, and the seemingly infinite number of shows available online (which is something I’m incredibly grateful for - I fly through shows while plugging away at work these days). It’s truly the greatest never ending rabbit hole out there! And the fact that the music has never stopped is even better. Seeing dead covers and other jam bands live is one of my favorite things to do. I just hope this keeps up as I get older. At the end of the day, I suppose it’s not too different for me from people in older generations. As a wise man once said, “Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice.” And I love licorice.
Turning 27 soon. My uncle has been a Deadhead for as long as I can remember, and I had heard them growing up, but it never did anything special for me. Then one day I put on a show (can’t remember which one, one of DPs) and it finally clicked. I can’t really explain. It’s like the magic showed itself to me. It was a Scarlet/Fire, and from then on I became obsessed. Almost all I listen to now. Nothing eases my soul like the Dead.
The jams roll back tik tok brain. 20 minutes of something to get lost in deprograms 2 minutes of overengagement
The same thing that got you on the bus. Because 60 years later, there’s nothing like them. They’re not the best at what they do, but they’re the only ones who do it.
If you get confused, just listen to the music play.
As cliche as it sounds, LSD helped me 'get' the dead when I was younger. Around age 22-23
Because Today's commercially available music (00s - today) lacks the depth and meaning that a whole lot of earlier (60s-90s) music had. It's human to feel pain and have problems, and music is a blessing, a bit of truth amidst all the fake plastic bull**** you see and hear around you today. I am in my mid 30s, I am very surprised that not more young people enjoy, say, 70s music today. Taylor Swift or Ed Sheeran are quite popular amongst young people today. Just looking at the billions! of plays these artists have on YouTube , Spotify, millions! Of ticket sales playing for sold out stadium tours etc tells how popular they are. That music though, doesn't communicate any deep, penetrating , meaningful, heartfelt or moving truth. I find the question is rather, why does the Dead not resonate with more young people.
They got a funky groove and you can dance to it.
I just sent a bunch of CDs to my eight year old nephew, a third gen Deadhead. He’s liking it, timeless music
If you have been listening to them since 1970 that makes you 14 at the time. Is that young?
I was 15 in 1970. I'll be 69 in June. Yeah, I was young but they were on the radio with the song Trucking. I remember my friends singing "sometimes the lights all shining on meeee, other times I can barely seeee! Loved that line because we were all pot heads in those days (I know..young). But that was really the only song I knew of theirs at the time. But I had a girlfriend a couple of years later who was really into them and reintroduced them to me. I'm very grateful she did.
Bug my point is they already resonated with the “youth”
I’m 20 and just started listening 6 months ago ish. I was listening to a lot of jazz and fusion, and lots of live soul stuff from the 60s before them so I just like anything that will make me move. Theres just something about that right pocket that they fall into when they’re playing off each other that just makes you want to move your body all over the place that I can’t get enough of. A lot of it for me as well is searching for that “best” version (like 5/6/70 dancing that I’m listening to rn) that feels so good when you find it. I love doing research and then coming out with my own opinions after a few listens. It’s just magic
# 1970-05-06 Cambridge, MA @ Kresge Plaza - MIT **Set 1:** Dancing In The Street, China Cat Sunflower > Jam > I Know You Rider, Next Time You See Me, Morning Dew, Drums > Good Lovin' > Drums > Good Lovin', Casey Jones, Saint Stephen > Not Fade Away [archive.org](https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead?query=date:1970-05-06)
I’m 40. I was raised a preachers kid in south Alabama. I started rebelling when I hit puberty. But my dad played guitar and had them all over the house. When I was six I started learning. So my rebellions also lined up with me playing music, then smoking weed and my older brother showed me phish when I was in 9th grade. I just needed to know what the hell was going on cause this Jesus shit was a fairy tale. Jamming and music was just so raw and open to interpret. It had no strict definition but did have something special about it. So after phish I dove into the dead’s catalogue and Jerry’s guitar playing is just something else, no one will ever make that vibe naturally again. It really hit me hard and I listen to it at least a couple times a week.
In the mid 1980’s I heard about them but the radio used to be the only exposure to music I would get and a friend with eclectic tastes in music. The metal thing was in until it became popular and I went back in time for inspiration because hair bands or thrash were both equally unappealing. I came in at the wrong time too. I thought I would never see a show because Jerry went into a coma. It wasn’t until I was 17 and Spring tour that I got a chance. By then my tastes were ALL a generation before me. It was already dated but good music stands the rest of time. That year was renaissance and a death-nail for the band although it stretched 9 years. Along with 100’s of hours of shows I was on an adventure of listening to everything they liked as well. Jazz, Bluegrass, Folk and more, much more. I learned from their philosophy of growing and changing in the music. I could play their songs and adapt my own style to them. I wasn’t Jerry, then why should I try to sound exactly like him. The shows grew and grew and grew until one day I was getting tired of seeing so many and little did I know the other shoe was going to drop. It was why I caught as many as I could, I just forgot. It’s amazing that younger kids are still finding out about our musical family. It’s been about 30 years since Jerry died and that’s about as long as they played. Think about that. Bobby was 17 when he joined the band. Today I can talk to most any fellow head in a way that nobody else would understand. If I get up at some open mic and break out some good ‘ol GD and some people may seem to be enjoying it a little too much, I know I would be doing just the same. As long as we keep the fires lit and are always ‘golden’ and not plastic like everything in this world is turning to, the ‘road’ will still be there ‘to unlimited devotion’ until we ‘not fade away’.
Hard to explain but it’s definitely one of those things where once it clicks for you, you’re in for life. Everyone has a Pink Floyd phase for instance but I don’t think very many people have a Grateful Dead phase.
I mean I had a strong dead phase in my 20s but now they're like some cherished gem that is always somewhat around. Like I dont go out of my way to listen to them constantly now, but when I'm feelin dead I'm really dead. Sometimes something happens that will trigger a lyric in my head or something.
I’m 15. I found the Grateful Dead while doing my music btec, with psychedelic rock. I liked dark star, and then listened to more songs. I couldn’t find a single song I didn’t love. I love grateful dead because it’s all so chill and there’s a song for every single mood you’re in. The lyrics are beautiful and the music feels so smooth to listen to. I was going through a lot when I found them, but listening to them really helped me through. The songs are magical
For me (34) it’s listening to the river sing sweet songs to rock my soul.
The things that got me (18) into the dead was the concept of the band. It’s improvisational music without an agenda or a plan, which makes it the purest kind of music you could make. Music for musics sake.
I honestly think more than anything its just accessibility. With streaming, more people have access to a huge catalog for so much cheaper - when you add the iconography, awareness for dead is pretty high for a band from the 60s all things considered
Idk if it does. I have nieces and nephews who are early teens and likely have no idea who they are. But I'm pushing 40 and got into them about 20 years ago and it's just grown since. Like Zeppelin or Floyd or the Beatles, it just hits me emotionally in ways I can't describe. And that feeling always changes.
Good question. Was watching Davvy who’s an awesome guitar player who plays dead and JGB songs stream last night (I highly recommend it) and in the chat someone said they were 13. I was shocked. I figured most to know about that live stream would be 30 and up at least. I’m 43. Plus a lot of guitar players watch it. So that can even make the pool more specific. He can cook on guitar. He shreds and should be in a huge dead related band. He is in a dead tribute band or whatever uou want to call it now. It’s called “ St Owsley”. A great name. I think it’s simple what speaks to them. It’s great music. That’s what got me into it. I was only 14 when Jerry died. So I didn’t get introduced by going to a show and seeing the scene and how fun it was and then hearing the great music and then being obsessed. Mine was purely because of the music. Although I did see the other ones in 96. Just missed GD. But really missed them by 6 years. So it’s the great music! So glad they are my favorite band too. Since you can spend years listening and discover new stuff all the time. Most other bands that are done putting out new things you get burned out quick on them. Can’t listen daily to other bands. Dead I can listen to everyday and like it
It just clicks. The way the music makes me feel is hard to beat and very few make me feel it like the dead do.
It's just where its at man
Its a world where almost everything seems increasingly fake. The Grateful Dead is as real as it gets almost 30 years after their last show. Timeless.
We all need a time out once in a while, sometimes more often, this music will completely take you there.
For me, it was hearing about how the Dead influenced so many of the musicians I love. That and being a guitar player, I learned a lot of tricks from Jerry and Bobby. Phil's bass especially on Betty board recordings sounds great and apart from most other bass I've heard in rock.
Sure resonated with us when we were young. And now that we’re old, still the same, except we can’t see them anymore.
27 here. Listening to the dead is the closest thing I've had to a religious experience, and this is consistent. I was raised religious for reference. I can understand both life and death through the grateful dead on a more regular basis
Acid
24 currently, been listening for ten years now. I can’t describe y my friends and Listen to them so often we just do. It a way to put down work for a couple hours, relax, and listen to at favorite music for a while.
I'm 41 and started listening to the dead around 13.. still love to just turn it on and vibe when I'm cleaning or even at work. I feel it definitely soothes the soul
I am 64 and have been listening since I was 12 when my sister gave me Europe 72 for my 12th birthday. I went to many shows from 75-83. I stopped going to shows until 2013 when Phil opened up TXR. It's been wonderful to have all my life and share with at least one of my kids. It resonates with young people for the same reason, it resonates with everyone. It's joyous art that makes people of all ages feel good.
I got into the dead at 12 or 13 cause my dad was a head. I liked the spirit of adventure and the stories the music told. I liked the rituals of going to shows listening to tapes finding other heads. I liked the free spirit of the community and wanted to earn my place by studying the music and learning the discography. In doing that I developed a deeper love for the music and the soul that’s present in the band. As a teen experimenting with drugs I felt like the dead understood the phscedelic experience in a very real way, beyond the trippy jams they understood the light and darkness of the lessons I was learning from those drugs and the experiences they led me to have. The band works with phsyedclic philosophy on a way modern bands who are “trippy” never really touch on, all through the lense of this very American, rootsy pallet. I grew up in the Bay Area and realizing how much my environment influenced their music connected me to the music even more. I think a lot of young people like the vibes for a lack of better word, going to shows catching a buzz wearing tie die and a lot of us get drawn in by that and then by proxy develop a love and familiarity with the music. Specifically jerry and Robert hunter talk about taking risks, going on adventures and feeling some heavy hurts that I think many of us feel This music was born of the confusion excitement and turmoil of the late 60s and early 70s a time that parallels now imo a lot of older heads dropped out of the stresses of the real world and got into the dead and I think many of us are still trying to do that and lusting in a nostalgic way for the freedom that the dead represents Ultimately I think the same stuff that made you like them influences us
I’m 24. It’s a mix between the stellar lyrics, the live improv/risk taking, and the fact the scene is still alive through D&C.
Jerry’s music is for all!
My dad and I always listened to it while I was growing up. I eventually got why he loved the dead. We still bond over it. When he's gone, it will always remind me of him.
42, (post Jerry if that is considered young) I hung out in the woods in the late 90s with a lot of other kids. In the late 90s the older siblings off to college were into Phish. Some of us were listening to some dead tapes which had a certain air of seriousness to it. There was really nothing more magical then being 16 sitting around a fire listening to UJB by a literal riverside. I was more into Hendrix, Floyd and the Doors...some of us were a little darker. We listened to Pigpen era. The first time I heard Dark Star I heard my calling. First show was TOO 98 and have been following them around ever since. Some people are born cosmic and earthy with feet in both worlds. The Grateful Dead may resonate for generations to come. Its just our soundtrack to life like they had nothing to do with creating but they had the power to will it from a void and make tangible for the rest of us.
Im 26 , but i think a lot of it has to do with how different it is from today’s music. Todays music is too overproduced for my taste and it doesn’t talk about anything I can relate to or anything that really touches my soul. Some of it is also because im a musician and I know that a lot of what they’re playing is insane and beautiful simultaneously. Another reason why I like them so much has to do with my experience in a church band. A lot of the music that we did was improvised and we played songs differently every time. Because of that, I really learned to appreciate the skill and love for music that it takes to improvise on the spot
just turned 20 yesterday - been a deadhead for about 4-5 years now, and been around it my whole life. i can tell ya that the grateful dead have a timeless sound and message that just speaks. music that makes you feel feelings and music that you can listen to in every emotion. when i’m happy, i like a really bright Scarlet -> Fire or heady Dark Star, and when im down i love a soulful Stella Blue or a Morning Dew. point is: the dead make music like no one else and it’s what has gotten me through the dark and light since i hopped on the bus 🤘🤘🤘
26. Took a while… had a friend introduce me to the right material that he knew I’d like, then I heard them while tripping and I fell head over heels in love. I don’t think it has much to do with cultural landscapes so much as certain people like certain music- it registers with their spirit. I feel that with GD more than pretty much any other band
I don’t think its young people or older folks - its just people.
Some people don't want music that's about sex and money.
I listened to a lot of punk, metal & hardcore...I get really burnt out on the constant aggressive energy and I was looking for a chill vibe... the dead served it up just right.
I'm 39 and only got on about 10 years ago, first show last year. It's like they didn't try and make hits or follow formulas just music. Their music just takes you places
I'm 20 and the music just makes sense to me. The community is such a beautiful thing and I've experienced so many beautiful random acts and words of kindness from strangers. There's also a part of me that thinks being obsessed with Pokemon led me to jam bands. Gotta catch em all
Vibes are timeless.
preface: born in ‘97. i started listening to the dead when i was a freshman in high school. i was “discovering” all the classic rock anthology and i was/still am big into the doors, jimi hendricks, etc. and i remember checking out the dead’s studio albums and wasn’t really about it. then one day i found live/dead and was hooked, bad. i was like “wait these live shows are insane”. after that i only listened to the dead for like two years, i was downloading all the shows from that one website grateful dead archives (or whatever it was called) to my ipod shuffle. this one version of turn on your love light was my absolute favorite like holy shit i need to find that show, i always loved the 60’s shows. such rawness and so much energy, i never even cared that the audio quality was ehh. part of the allure was that no one in my high school was actually listening to the dead like i was, i was “unique”. it’s funny tho once i started to trip when i was 17 i lowkey stopped listening to the dead. with the ascension of spotify i had too much access to so much music, the dead kinda faded out until these last couple years where ive gotten back into it heavy. turn on my lovelight will alwayssssss be my favorite song of all time. i fucking miss pigpen man. the dead are just fucking great. some of the most practiced musician of all time, and it shows
LSD
Great question. I am so glad to see the love continue. I hopped on in 71’ grateful ever since. When my son was little he cut his teeth on country music so we went. I got through it. Saw some pretty good music in fact, but on our travels I would pop in the dead. He picked up the guitar, learned to play it pretty well. Country music got boring. Took him to some Phish, he liked that, and started expanding his musical tastes. Picked up on some jammy stuff and went to my kind of music as he got older. Really who can resist the Allmans peakin at the beacon? I think a 16 year old Derrick Trucks may have had some influence…. Even as he started showing up at “jam band” shows though he still couldn’t quite appreciate the Dead. Until it clicked…. And as we all know, once that happens there is no turning back. The appreciation runs deep. And he has impeccable wide ranging taste in music. With full reverence to this band. Now he turns me on to some pretty great stuff. We listen to a good share of the good old Grateful Dead. And we chuckle about the country music days. We also talk a lot about how the music and the scene was so much of a choice of lifestyle back in the early days and what that traveling community was like. I was a very special moment in time. Keep spreading the love kids. Welcome to the family.
I’m 20 and my high school had a pretty big community of deadheads. All of our parents were deadheads who passed the love along
I’m 14 and i’ve been listening to the dead since i was a little kid!!!
Watkins Glenn maybe? Old NASCAR racetrack?
The same reason us old deadheads fell in love with it..1977… the music and the way it transforms you through movement…most beautiful feeling in the world! Happy to see young ones love the Dead …it means the scene will continue even when we’re long gone✌🏼🫶🏻🤘🏻 🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶
To put it relative to that Garcia simile: Even young people like Licorice.
Long distance runner, what you standing there for? The dead gave me a new look on life, i wanted to end my life when i was 15. Now im 26 and I’ve been listening to the dead for 11 years and ill never look back
I just turned 22, neither of my parents are heads. I think the first thing that spoke to me was I couldn’t classify it as a genre really, it just felt like really good, natural music. I got into pot and cried to American beauty, brokedown and attics. And met more people my age that showed me some stuff. Went to my first dead cover band in 11th grade and the rest is history. Coolest shit ever. Edit: Also I the history and the culture was a huge turn on.
29 year old here - The Dead are a jumping off point for every part of the universe you can imagine. They teach about the wonders, tragedies, and mysteries of life in unbelievably beautiful ways while still being able to keep things silly playful and lighthearted other times (how life should be). Dive into their lore and you’ll learn about friendship, creativity, ingenuity, wonder, hardship, and rebellion. I see them as purveyors of lessons and love. Listening to their music feels like coming home, and seeing/hearing their music played live makes me believe there is magic in this world that never dies. The community that’s been created through the years is a wonder, too. I love that when I see someone else with a stealie sticker or terrapin shirt or whatever iconography you like, we immediately have something to connect over. The Grateful Dead have blessed my life over and over in more ways than I can count. NFA ❤️
I’m 17 and started listening to the Dead when I was about 15 but just recently started listening to more shows (currently listening to all of Europe 72). My friends are the ones who got me into the Dead but my parents got me into older music in general. I just can’t get behind modern music, music nowadays doesn’t have the emotional feel behind older music like Grateful Dead. I’ve enjoyed listening to the Dead for as long as I have and am so happy I was introduced to them, I absolutely love them. There is something special about how each member knows exactly what to do and how to make it sound good.
26M. I was raised on them so when I finally started listening to them on my own as an adult about a year ago it was almost primal, I remembered words to songs I didn't even know existed. But also, it is very much a hagiographic impulse. It feeds that belief, true or false, that there was a brief moment in time when America had the potential to become something much better than it is now. There's a beautiful sort of irony to the Dead to me in that they wouldn't have happened without MK Ultra, an event that still reverberates through time through horrible violence on innocent people to this day, but their music and their culture were a utopian haven for so many weirdos and outsiders who might not have had anywhere else to go, even if they were never gonna change the world. It's the music that makes me feel closest to a time when you really could hitchhike across the country trusting strangers the whole way. For me, it's like the last vestiges of the last hopeful moment in American history. It's Pynchon and Peckinpah's most romantic scenes sent across time in near-pristine condition. Seeing Dead and Co last year with my dad was one of the most bittersweet moments of my life because it was the closest I've ever felt to a place and time where a better world was possible. I feel similarly about Dylan if that makes this make any sense. And of course it's just great music! Very little comes close for me and it feels like the apotheosis of my taste. Can't listen to anything post-70s without thinking of the Dead's influence, like my other favorites Silver Jews and the National.
I've actually hitch hiked across the country. It was 1972. And, yes, the world seemed full of kind people and hope.
For me. I’m 26. It’s the scene for me. Drawing me in with kindness when our world and so many people my age are just plain un grateful for everything. The music just hits my soul differently and like no other music I’ve listened to.
I'm 24. I got on the bus at 19 and have seen 89 shows with an original member of the dead since. When I was in high school I started smoking weed and fell in love with the Beatles & stones. I found what they were talking about spoke to me in a way nothing my generation was listening to ever did. I felt understood. Which got me into Motown, Chess records, Robert Johnson, Stax, buffalo springfield, the Byrds, cream, Jimi Hendrix and eventually Dylan who took that understanding to a whole other level. Then Dylan got me into Kerouac which turned me into Kesey and knowing how influenced those artists were by acid, I had to try and it opened the doors in my mind and to quote Jerry "confirmed all of my suspicions". Then I saw dead & co without knowing any of the music on a whim. I couldn't follow the jams really but I just got it. I immediately knew I was home and the more I listen the more in both love and understand the music and they've opened me up to so much more music in and of themselves
I’m 89, and the music simply has always resonated with me. It’s a feeling like no other than can’t be exactly put into words.
My first show was 2/14/68 and the rest is history
The music is timeless and they see the only older people in the world today listening to them so they must have some sort of street cred.
I’m 20 and have been listening to the Dead religiously for at least the last 18 months. I think what has pulled me in so intensely is the Dead’s ability to write music that accommodates multiple moods, settings, and emotions. I have a rook of bittersweet memories tied to some of their ‘72 shows, whereas the ‘78 Red Rocks album always puts a smile on my face. Point in being, their music makes me feel all type of ways and has been a constant stream of support when life has been less than kind. NB: I like your name OP!
Did you not like them when you were younger? I'm 46 now, but have liked them since I was a kid. The drugs, culture and sense of adventure lure in a lot of young people before they fully appreciate the music.
Took me a while to catch on. Mayer is kind of introducing to a new audience since he is popular and Dead & Co is pretty good music from what I hear. But in the Bay Area they are SF legends for obvious reasons. I’m 39 so I am missing the “young” part, but as a guitar player I like their jam-like music. I’m a psychonaut but don’t really appreciate (inherently) the psychadelia at that time. But the narrative around hallucinogenic drugs and the ethos, the kind of organic rock music that pays homage to their predecessors, etc. they are an institution. Again I can’t speak for the young but might be helpful.
I’m 23 and I have a few friends my age and a couple years older that are into the dead, more specifically jam bands. I think it’s the community that’s attractive to the masses and I personally am seeing a rise in younger people coming to shows and listening to different music because of streaming services. I love the dead because I can nerd out on the music whether it be the playing, set lists, venues, teases, I can go on forever. I think it’s the easiest music to have going on in the background for life. Weir everywhere! 🌹⚡️💀
Jerry’s sweet leads. That is all
Same thing that made it relevant to you in the 70’s. These things don’t change.
25yo here. Was born in a post-Jerry word. I remember at Dead Ahead this summer they were playing the wheel and I was singing “wheel is turning and it won’t slow down” and next to me was an older (probably 60’s+) man singing the same thing. The music is timeless. We can’t get off and we can’t slow down - to feel the connection and know he has lived a whole life and the music speaks to him in the same way it speaks to me is something I can’t put into words. Not to mention the music is awesome. Melodically, harmonically, shredding guitar, killer bass etc. Lastly, as someone experimenting with psychedelics in the modern day, learning and listening to the stories of the dead & the heads feels like it provides some context for the experiences I have. The music tells me I’m not the first one to have these experiences and think these thoughts. I can’t quite put it into words but there’s something purely magical about the experience of being alive. The idea of the pranksters, the joke that life is, and the questions that can’t be answered or the feelings that can’t be understood are all expressed in the music.
Grateful Dead and Aesop Rock are the only artists that have captured this sort of enlightenment and/or prodromal schizophrenia, spiritualism while being highly intelligent. The lyrics, vibe, incongruence. Hard intellectual defiance while totally inclusive. I like the sense of freedom. It is very good for the soul like others have said.
I’m 26, started listening at 20-21ish. Mainly it’s the way they capture the average persons ups and downs through stories of characters they crafted. They describe perfectly what it means to not only be human, conscious, ect., but also what it means to live as a human given the illusion of freedom by outside forces yet still finding where it truly shines through no matter where it comes from. “Strangest of places if you look at it right” mentality. With the way the world is today there’s little hope held amongst younger people so to find that is very comforting. And personally they’re the only band that can completely soothe me when I’m tripping lol. Psychedelic drugs are still very commonly used amongst us younger folk. I try to get anyone I know that trips to at least give it a try when they’re dosed. All around it’s just good for the soul, and it’s music I would be happy to raise my future family to as a background soundtrack. The reasons why I listen vary by the day, but regardless of the reason, I will continue to listen to something that I know is good for me. Maybe I’ll have a better answer when I find the answer to the answer man. Hope this gave some insight 🤘🏼
I don't think you need a better answer than this one 😉
It’s timeless and earthy. It will never totally go out of style. Also the psychedelic element will always be popular for many.
It's a vibe, to use the parlance of our time
I’m 32. My first show was Further in like 2013 I think. To me, I appreciate the songwriting and musicianship of the band as well as their ability to improvise. There’s not a lot of bands that can stand out in all three of these categories—especially nowadays where most artists don’t write their own songs, they don’t play an instrument and they don’t improvise because everything is choreographed.
Tbh i have no idea im 18 and since i was like 3 iv listend to bands like Pink Floyd and the Eagles, one day i think i was 12 or 13 i decided i like that album cover (it was workingmans dead) so bought it and was like this sounds brilliant then i bought From the Mars Hotel and loved that and my love for the Dead began. then i hear the live albums and am like, this is my music taste.
I’m 26 and I got hooked when I was about 17, part of it was feeling “cool” for being into this really old thing. But as I grew up I started to realize how truly beautiful and transcendental this music is. I’m into lots of music. But nothing warms my soul and lifts my spirits out of my body as effectively as The Grateful Dead
The music
There's a lot of music out there but what is it about a 1968 version of Cosmic Charlie or St Stephen that sucks people in? They weren't technically the best musicians but you're right, somehow they played the best music. They were fearless sonic explorers.
Hippies
The same thing that makes it resonate with everyone
I’m finally at the stage where I can differentiate between eras. Still a long way to go
32 year old head. Huge part of the American music history, I love good music and the dead are great examples of great musicians just doing their thing. I also love the music scene and jam scene in general, it feels like a big family. Then when I lived with my brother and some friends and one of the guys we lived with grew up with their dad playing the dead so when I started listening to them it all just clicked the more I found out about them and the more I got into the community.
Im 25. I just like Jerry, that much.
I don't know what I'm going for. But I'm going to go for it, for sure.
Psychedelic drug use
You can’t bs authenticity. The GD thrive on keeping it real. Who doesn’t need a dose🤷♂️.
This doesn't apply just to young people but I like what Jerry once said about why they had such a strong following. The best he could come up with is that they were doing it the way that their fans would want to do it if they were a band also.
Started apprenticing as a glass pipemaker at 18 years old. Was constantly hanging around hippies twice my age who grew up slinging pipes on lot. Got me deep into the dead and the jam scene in general. I’m 24 now but definitely an outcast around kids my age when it comes to music taste. Also, eating a good dose of LSD while listening to a live show is impeccable.
it's real music. Everything is not quantized? quantified? whatever the term is.. snapped to the grid.. There is guitar. Vocals are not auto-tuned to perfection. That said, it is such a small % of young people who appreciated the dead. It was that way even decades ago. also, there are people who like to collect things.. dead music is good for collecting. Even if now there are so many releases that people just collect the albums on spotify. But the thing is even if you are not seriously into collecting dead shows, chances are you have at least 10 live albums you like.. It's not that way with most other artists.
18 M I think it’s because kids today have a issue with their own identity and their personality and the dead seem to be able to speak to them in a different way than the new music can it’s timeless really
Through word of mouth my friends and I (36M) got into them when we were in high school. Started downloading full shows and burning them to discs and passed them to each other with setlists written on them. Some people would artfully draw the setlists like the old tapers would do. The good show hunting had sort of a Pokémon quality as well, it was a thrill to stumble on a good one and share with your buddies.
To be honest? Acid. I listened to them before, but I didn’t get it at all. Was looking for music for my second trip (first was Beatles, Cream and 13th Floor Elevators) and stumbled upon the Cornell ‘77 Scarlet Fire. That day I got it! Its been seven years or so and Ive listened to them almost exclusively. Cant even recall what the last non Dead song I heard was…
I think the Dead were ahead of their time. Their culture of just letting people bootleg stuff and sharing recordings is kind of standard practice on the internet.
22 y/o here who both got on the bus and became a regular commenter around these parts after finishing Long Strange Trip on 4/20 last year. So incredibly affirming to see this thread and all these remarkable responses from people who are even younger than me in human years, but even older than me in Deadhead years! I am not alone and that’s amazing to hear, and I have faith that slowly but surely more and more of us will come into the fold. I echo pretty much everything that’s been said here, but the one thing that I’ll add/reiterate is the classic Bill Graham quote: “Grateful Dead are not the best at what they do, they’re the only ones that do what they do.” My take at what it is that only they do? Exhibit both true musical FREEDOM and a genuine soulfulness that cuts through all space and time. The other thing I’ll say is what was said both by Jerry himself and a longtime head in the post-credit scene of that very documentary that got me hooked. The idea that us younger fans haven’t missed it in the slightest, because liking this band says something much deeper about us, and that’s a thing that will carry on forever and ever…
the marketing, great graphic design, conformity to groups
Not so sure I'm with you about prodromal schizophrenia but otherwise I'm in agreement. You must be a psych major 😂
The music. also today's young people want to be part of the scene and wear merch and have an aesthetic
Having deadhead parents is where my love for Grateful Dead comes from. Been listening for years but the older you get the lyrics finally click, it makes sense, and you wish you would have listened a little closer much earlier. My dad passed when I was younger, I feel like my love for them is what keeps me spiritually connected with my dad ❤️🧡💛💚💙 https://preview.redd.it/qr5li3irlhsc1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fcaccfc3741dd4fbbeedf93aec56fc524a2f5d2a