I'm not allowed to embed these Grateful Dead Videos, but...

(the Google won't let me embed vids that aren't mine since I'm an AdSense publisher)

I think I'm allowed to link to them.

[UPDATE: This one captures it too... and I think I might have been at this showwith Bruce Hornsby at... where was it, again? Philly? This one was before my time but it was their best period... except maybe '77 or '66 .... aw, hell, do yourself a favor and go to YouTube and get lost in it for a couple hours. All those years... all those shows... all those blissfully blown minds... yea, I was lucky to have been there, and if you were there, you know what I mean, and if you weren't, unfortunately, you never will... sorry kidz, ain't nothin' like a Grateful Dead show. Never was, never will be.)

I was there, and it was way better than this. It was, shall we say, enhanced for 95 percent of the 15,000 or so at the show and shall we say greatly enhanced for 75 percent of those (if you get what I'm gettin' at, and if you were there, you do...). Imagine a thing like that. If you were there, you know. If not, you simply do not know. Sorry. I have sliced this rationally ten thousand ways, and I can only conclude that there has been nothing like a Grateful Dead show since at least the Dionysian festivals of ancient Greece. Seriously. And, yeah, I've seen Phish -- a very pale imitation.

(Reminds me of the joke: Trey Anastasio, lead dude of Phish, dies and goes to heaven. As he's being shown to his quarters, a tumble-down shack, he points out a mansion up on a hill, resplendent with Grateful Dead skulls and roses, Steal-Your-Faces and other Grateful Dead themes.

"How come Jerry gets a mansion and I get this shack?" He asks.

"Oh, no, that's Jesus's house," comes the answer.)

Listen to Jerry. What a magic guitar player he was.... but he was only 1/6 of it -- a good sixth, to be sure, but weren't they all.

Try this one, too.

If you happen to be a drummer or digital "audio" guru, you might enjoy this one -- that is, if you have an attention span exceeding that of a flea.

God, I love the Internet. For yet more tangentially related stuff, go here.