Grateful Dead

May 1977: Get Shown The Light

RHINO. CD/DL Eleven-disc live box includes revered show from Cornell U, also out as a stand-alone LP. The essential Deadness that converts doubters is the not-knowing: what comes next, where it’ll lead, whether the fruits will be disaster or keys to the universe. That said, we’ll also accept perfection. The magic of ’77 Dead, and these four consecutive shows especially, is consistency. Everything the band does well, they do at peak; the usual shortcomings are nowhere in sight. Career-high performances pepper each night, as the band plays song after song with melded-mind. Even lesser cuts like Deal and Big River play like fire rather than filler. On major work – Terrapin Station, St Stephen, Scarlet Begonias – Jerry Garcia lays down playing that perpetually favours the heart over head. This is a Dead that’s joyfully confident and self-aware, and audibly thrilled to share the rewards. They’d play for nearly 20 more years, but never again be this stone solid.