Don’s Pick • Halloween Special, Week 5 of 5

Fifteen Years In, the Dead Closed Out Their Anniversary Run With a Three-Set Marathon

Grateful Dead • October 31, 1980 • Radio City Music Hall, New York, NY

Fifteen years deserved a proper send off, and the Grateful Dead gave it one. This Halloween night at Radio City Music Hall closed out a genuinely historic 15th anniversary run, fifteen nights at San Francisco’s Warfield Theatre followed by eight nights at Radio City, and the band marked the occasion with a three-set marathon format rarely attempted before or since, one acoustic set followed by two full electric sets. The whole thing went out live on FM radio and simulcast on closed-circuit television across the country, and the recording became the backbone of two landmark live albums, Reckoning and Dead Set, along with the concert film Dead Ahead.

Saturday Night Live’s Al Franken and Tom Davis hosted the closed-circuit broadcast, running bizarre, drug culture skewering comedy sketches between sets, including a fake mock interview with “Henry Kissinger” and a bit where they snuck backstage into the band’s actual dressing room. It gave the whole night a strange, loose energy well before the band ever played a note.

The acoustic opener alone made the night worth remembering. The Dead hadn’t played regular acoustic sets since the early 1970s, and Phil Lesh dealt with serious bass setup issues that kept him off the stage for the first four songs entirely. Because it was the final night of the run, the band dug up acoustic rarities they hadn’t touched in years, including the final career performance ever of Bob Weir’s instrumental “Sage and Spirit,” unplayed since 1975, and the traditional folk cover “Little Sadie,” unplayed since 1970. The set closed with a gorgeous “Bird Song” flowing into a massive, singalong “Ripple,” now regarded as one of the definitive live recordings of that song ever captured.

Once the band plugged in, the energy shifted entirely. Set two opened with back-to-back barnburners in “Jack Straw” and “Cold Rain and Snow,” along with an early, deeply bluesy take on Willie Dixon’s “Little Red Rooster,” a song the band had only just reintroduced to their catalog that year. Set three built to the night’s true peak, a legendary run from “Franklin’s Tower” through Drums and Space into “Fire on the Mountain,” a version widely ranked among Deadheads as one of the most fluid Jerry Garcia ever played, and the exact performance chosen for the live album Dead Set. The whole marathon closed with “Uncle John’s Band” as the encore, a fitting, harmony-rich way to end fifteen years and eight nights at Radio City at once.

Fifteen years, twenty three nights across two cities, and it all closed with three full sets on Halloween in the heart of New York. Five weeks of spooky Dead shows, and this was the biggest one yet.