15 Moments That Defined the Last 30 Years of the Grateful Dead

Sound-collage artist John Oswald, known for coining the term “plunderphonics,” wasn’t a particularly huge Deadhead when Phil Lesh invited him to work his cut-and-paste magic on the band’s live vault in the early Nineties, but he found a unique way to celebrate fans’ tape-trading culture. Oswald ended up splicing more than 100 performances of “Dark Star” into the ultimate version of the ultimate live Dead song, stretching it out into a trippy odyssey that runs close to two hours. Since the performances that Oswald sampled range from 1968 to 1993, Grayfolded taps into something that no one bootleg, however transcendent, could. “It’s not a performably possible version of ‘Dark Star,’” he said. “You can’t have three generations of Jerry Garcias live onstage together. But there’s this illusion of it being the Grateful Dead in concert.” —Simon Vozick-Levinson

The digital librarian and historian — and Deadhead — Brewster Kahle started the Internet Archive in the spring of 1996; its mission was “universal access to all knowledge.” Over time it would become a trove for all kinds of old media, from scanned vintage magazines to digitized tapes of old DJ sets to the famous “Wayback Machine,” which has archived millions of now-dead web pages. The janky RealAudio files of 1996 — the era when internet cafes began sprouting up in American cities — would, by 2004, give way to mp3s and, increasingly, streaming, as connectivity became far faster and more reliable. That year, Kahle started the Dead Archive — by and for tape traders — helping fans get on the fast track to Dead-show knowledge. It was taken down by the band’s lawyers in late ’05 — a move so controversial within the band’s inner circle that it made The New York Times. Eventually, the band and Kahle made an agreement: Soundboards made by the band were listen-only; audience tapes could be downloaded. Even after decades’ worth of reissues and box sets, the Internet Archive remains the place to get your uncut Dead fix. —Michaelangelo Matos

Operating for three summers total in the immediate aftermath of Jerry Garcia’s passing, the Furthur Festival adapted the Lollapalooza format for the jam-band circuit. The initial outing, which opened in Atlanta and closed in Phoenix, was headlined by two Dead men’s bands, Bob Weir’s RatDog and Mickey Hart’s Mystery Box, along with the simpatico likes of Hot Tuna, Los Lobos, Bruce Hornsby, Alvin Youngblood Hart, and John Wesley Harding, plus jugglers the Flying Karamazov Brothers. They meshed in interesting ways — most of the groups played Dead songs routinely … except for the bands with actual Grateful Dead members: Hart’s all-percussion group might encore with “Fire on the Mountain” (done … yes … as a rap), while RatDog “only knew two Grateful Dead songs,” Joel Selvin writes in his post-Garcia Dead chronicle, Fare Thee Well, summing up the Deadheads’ frustration with them: “Not only did [Weir] refuse to have a lead guitar in his band, he wouldn’t even play rock music, much less Dead songs.” —M.M.

Three years after the death of Garcia, the revival the Grateful Dead reached another major landmark when Weir, Lesh, and Hart formed the Other Ones. Bolstered by Bruce Hornsby, Steve Kimock, Mark Karan, John Molo, and Dave Ellis, the lineup debuted its mojo on July 24, 1998, on the Further Festival tour. Dead favorites like “Dark Star,” “Hell in a Bucket,” and “Scarlet Begonias” were all in the set, along with the song that gave the group its name, 1968’s “The Other One.” The band toured through 2002, with various personnel shifts, and ultimately transformed again in 2003, christening themselves the Dead. —Joseph Hudak

Weir, Lesh, and Hart hadn’t shared a stage in four years before they reunited at San Francisco’s Warfield Theater on Feb. 4, 2008. The man who brought them together? Presidential candidate Barack Obama, who was facing Hillary Clinton in California’s Democratic primary the next day. Lesh, whose teenage son had been working as a volunteer on Obama’s campaign, got the band back together for the concert dubbed “Deadheads for Obama ’08” after being impressed by the Illinois senator’s hope-and-change-filled rallies. “The first thing I thought of was to talk to these two guys and say ‘Hey, are you with me on this?’” Lesh told Rolling Stone. “Not only am I with you on this,” said Hart, “I was just about to call you up for the very same reason.” Obama lost the California primary but won the Democratic nomination, and that October, the three musicians played another campaign rally in Pennsylvania, this time joined by Bill Kreutzmann, en route to the candidate’s historic general election win. —S.V.L.

In a moment that would’ve been inconceivable when the band formed during the LBJ administration, the Dead were tapped to play one of the inaugural balls to honor new president Barack Obama. As Lesh recalled, “We had about an hour. The way we were thinking of it, we could either do two songs for an hour, or do six songs and keep it down a little bit.” They’re set was highlighted by classics like “Uncle John’s Band,” “Sugar Magnolia,” and “Eyes of the World,” and was briefly interrupted by the arrival of Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, who slow danced to Van Morrison’s “Have I Told You Lately.” The Dead even complied with the night’s formal-wear protocol. “The inauguration crowd was pretty swinging,” Weir said. “They were in a celebratory mood. We played a few songs before I took my coat off.” —Jon Dolan

Fresh off the reunion for Barack Obama in Pennsylvania, the “core four” members decided to embark on their first tour together in five years, with guitarist Warren Haynes the latest to step into Garcia’s sizable shoes. To get Deadheads psyched, the new lineup hopscotched around New York City in one day, playing three free shows at three different venues. The day began with an unlikely appearance on The View, where co-host Whoopi Goldberg exclaimed, “I love me some Dead!” Then came a Weir, Lesh and Haynes acoustic set at a Lower East Side theater, followed by a full-band electric show at the Gramercy Theatre before a wrap-up concert at the since-closed Roseland Ballroom. Although Haynes’ guitar and vocals were more rooted in barroom blues and Southern rock than any of his predecessors, so much else about the band — Lesh’s fluid bass, the two-drum attack of Hart and Kreutzmann — remained intact. In the stamina department alone, the Dead’s triple play was an accomplishment unto itself. —David Browne
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During the few years Furthur existed, the post-Dead reunion-tour band formed by Lesh and Weir was among the most limber of the post-Garcia combos. It was also the most eerily familiar: Guitarist John   Kadlecik had Garcia’s voice and guitar down. The band had many standout shows, like a celebratory one at New York’s Madison Square Garden in late 2020, but this special San Francisco gig also stood out. To help Lesh celebrate entering his seventh decade, Furthur was joined by Black Crowes’ Chris Robinson, who took the lead on “Peggy-O” and a rare live version of Pigpen’s “The Stranger (Two Souls in Communion),” while new-gen jam master Jackie Greene handled “Scarlet Begonias.” Amid the many smiles onstage was the sound of the Dead’s repertoire being handed over to disciples willing to run — and have fun — with it. —D.B.

Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of the Grateful Dead was a two-part series of concerts that brought the band’s surviving “Core Four” — Weir, Lesh, Kreutzmann, and Hart — back together for the first time in years. Spread across two sets of shows — the first two concerts at Levi Stadium in Santa Clara, California, and then three at Chicago’s Soldier Field — the performances featured Trey Anastasio of Phish, stepping into Garcia’s role on guitar, former Grateful Dead touring member Bruce Hornsby, and Ratdog/the Other Ones keyboardist Jeff Chimenti. There were several standout moments from the shows, including the Chicago July 3, 2015, opener, where Lesh opened the show singing “Box of Rain,” and a gorgeous rainbow appearing after the first set on the first night in Santa Clara on June 25, 2015. —Alison Weinflash

Just when everybody thought they’d never see most of the Dead together again after the Fare Thee Well shows that spring, here came another incarnation with … John Mayer? The connection actually began with Rolling Stone, after Mayer mentioned his love of the band in an interview, leading to request from someone in the Dead camp for a contact for him. Despite Mayer’s guitar skill set, it was easy to be skeptical about how he would blend with Weir, Hart, and Kreutzmann (and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti and bassist Oteil Burbridge). But from the kickoff, “Jack Straw,” and building over two sets to a cathartic “Morning Dew,” Mayer didn’t just adequately play ball, but also seriously stepped up to the plate. Along with Burbridge, he proved himself a respectful student who took his new part-time job seriously. That show would set the stage for another, starting decades’ worth of Dead & Company shows. —D.B.

An astonishing tribute to the Dead’s living legacy, this five-hour Dead-covers album helmed by Aaron and Bryce Dessner of the National is probably the most ambitious album of its kind ever created. There’s Afropop (Senegalese guitar wizards Orchestra Baobob’s shimmering “Franklin’s Tower”), country (Lucinda Williams’ hot and heavy take on “Going Down the Road Feeling Bad”), and soul music (Charles Bradley funking up “Cumberland Blues”). But most of the album is a love letter from the indie-rock community, a world where the Dead’s beautifully paradoxical notion of American beauty and guitar gorgeousness has had a massive resonance for decades. Kurt Vile, Courtney Barnett, Stephen Malkmus, Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan, and many others all turned in reverent reimaginings of Dead classics. —J.D.

By 2017, there had already been lots of books about the Grateful Dead, plus a number of appearances by band members in various musical-history programs and films (see 2003’s Festival Express, about a legendary 1970 Canadian tour by train, also featuring Janis Joplin, the Band, and Buddy Guy). There had even been The Grateful Dead Movie (filmed in 1974, released in 1977). But there was no full-on band-bio feature until Long Strange Trip premiered at the Sundance Film Festival that January. Originally planned for a 2015 release — 50 years from the band’s inception — but completed on Dead time, Amir Bar-Lev’s four-hour documentary history, co-executive-produced by Martin Scorsese, received a rapturous reception. No wonder — as Rolling Stone’s David Fear reported from the festival, “Most of the folks assembled for the Sundance premiere of Long Strange Trip were almost assuredly Deadheads at one point.” —M.M.

You could probably write a whole book about the relationship between the Grateful Dead and various kinds of merchandise, and this collaboration with Nike is a unique moment in that history. The overlap between Deadheads and sneakerheads might not be immediately apparent, but in 2020, when Nike released three Dead-themed versions of its SB Dunk Lows (in green, orange, and yellow, designed to pay tribute to the band’s Dancing Bear mascot), the shoe was a smash. The first batch immediately sold out, and the shoes were soon going for as much as $3,500. —J.D.

After months of mixed messages about their future, Dead & Company surprised fans by announcing a residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas. The band confirmed a 24-show run beginning March 20, 2024, which was later extended to 30 shows. Guitarist John Mayer acted as creative director, working with digital studios and using visual effects to create the stunning visuals displayed on the Sphere’s huge wraparound LED screen. The whole production took six months to develop, with new visuals added throughout the first part of the residency. Alongside the concerts, fans could visit the “Dead Forever Experience” at the Venetian, which showcased a one-quarter scale model of the Wall of Sound, artwork by drummer Hart, a collection of concert tapes from archivist David Lemieux, and photos from Grateful Dead tours between 1965 and 1995. Dead & Company returned to the Sphere in 2025 for a second residency. Fans are hoping the band will come back in 2026. —A.W.

Joe Biden held his final Kennedy Center honors ceremony in 2024, celebrating the Grateful Dead, Bonnie Raitt, and Francis Ford Coppola. “Technical virtuosos fiercely dedicated to their craft, they fused decades and dozens of musical styles to create a whole new American sound. Experimental, innovative and brave,” the president said in his remarks. Weir, Hart, and Kreutzmann were on hand for a televised performance that included Sturgill Simpson performing “Ripple” with help from a video of Jerry Garcia singing the song, and Derek Trucks, Suzan Tedeschi, and Dave Matthews teamed up for “Sugaree.” The peak moment had to be Queen Latifah doing the disco-Dead classic “Shakedown Street” backed by dancing bears. —J.D.