Don’s Pick Halloween Special: Five Weeks, Five Shows. Plus the Loss of Bob Masse, Dead Bowl at Brooklyn Bowl, and Everything Live This Month.
Wembley 1990. Columbus 1971. Carolina Coliseum 1985. Oakland 1991. Radio City 1980. Five Halloween classics on five consecutive Saturdays at 9 PM. Bob Masse is gone. Shakedown Citi takes Brooklyn Bowl on October 28.
London’s Ushers Gave Up Trying to Keep This Crowd in Their Seats
Wembley Arena was built for sitting down. That plan survived about five minutes once the Grateful Dead hit the stage on Halloween night, 1990. Local ushers tried enforcing the venue’s strict all-seated policy, and the Deadheads, who had spent the pre-show charming security with smiles and small gifts, simply overwhelmed them. Within minutes the arena staff gave up entirely, and the rest of the night played out with fans dancing in the aisles and climbing over seats for two full sets.
This show caught the band mid-transition, just a few months after the sudden death of longtime keyboardist Brent Mydland that July. Vince Welnick had stepped in on keys, and Bruce Hornsby, deep into his first full tour run with the band, added acoustic grand piano and accordion alongside him. The chemistry between Hornsby and Jerry Garcia gave the whole run a noticeably fresh, energized feel, even as Garcia’s voice carried a rough, scratchy edge through much of the night. His guitar work more than compensated, blistering through both sets with real precision.
The Wembley show has always held a specific place in the lore of this particular touring era. Playing overseas on Halloween gave the whole night an extra charge. The band knew it, the crowd knew it, and the recording captures that mutual awareness. This is not a polished band running through a comfortable set. This is a band with something to prove playing for a crowd that had traveled an ocean to see them, in a country where Halloween night had nowhere near the cultural weight it carries in the States, which somehow made the whole thing feel more private and more intense at the same time.
Full show details on The Grateful Dead Live →All Five Halloween Picks, October Through November · Every Saturday at 9 PM Eastern
Don is spending the entire month of October and into November on Halloween shows, one per Saturday night at 9 PM Eastern. Five different decades, five different configurations of the band, five different versions of what Halloween meant to the Grateful Dead on a stage.
Brent Mydland had just died that July. Vince Welnick and Bruce Hornsby were both on stage. The Deadheads charmed Wembley security into submission and danced in the aisles all night. Garcia’s voice was rough. His guitar was not.
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Keith Godchaux had joined the band just days earlier. This was his second show with them. The Ohio Theatre Columbus Halloween 1971 is one of the most documented early-seventies recordings, capturing the band at the exact moment a new era began.
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The 1985 fall tour is one of the most celebrated chapters of the mid-decade renaissance. Brent Mydland at his peak, Mickey Hart back in the fold, and a Dead playing with the confidence of a band that knew exactly how good they were. Carolina Coliseum on Halloween captures all of that.
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Oakland on Halloween. The Grateful Dead playing their home territory on the most Dead-appropriate night of the year, with Vince Welnick fully settled in and the band running with the momentum of the Welnick era at its most confident. One of the essential recordings of the early nineties run.
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Radio City Music Hall. Halloween. 1980. The John Belushi era, the acoustic sets, the band experimenting with two-set structures that put acoustic material before the electric sets went off. One of the most visually and musically celebrated venues in the history of the band’s touring career. This is the crown jewel of the five-week run.
Show details →Bob Masse · Psychedelic Poster Legend · Visual Architect of the 1960s Counterculture · Dead at 81
I knew Bob Masse, who was always so gracious with me. He signed all of the artwork I ever got from him and he was always forthcoming about it. I have a lot of his work and I think all but one may be signed.
The broader classic rock community is mourning Bob Masse, the legendary Canadian psychedelic poster artist who passed away on September 21, 2026, at the age of 81. Masse was a foundational visual architect of the 1960s counterculture music scene, designing iconic concert and promotional posters for the Grateful Dead, the Doors, Jefferson Airplane, and Bob Dylan. As a pioneering visual architect of the era, his work helped bridge the gap between historic art movements and the explosive music scene of the West Coast.
Masse’s work was instantly recognizable for its masterful blending of 19th-century Art Nouveau aesthetics — heavily inspired by Czech painter Alphonse Mucha — with the bold, vivid, and intentionally hard-to-read lettering of 1960s psychedelia. His compositions featured flowing, ornate borders, intricate linework, and stylized central figures that perfectly captured the cosmic energy of the era. Born in Burnaby, British Columbia, Masse attended the Vancouver School of Art, now Emily Carr University.
The “Bob Dylon” Commission · 1965
His first major gig poster was for a Bob Dylan show at Vancouver’s Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Famously, Masse misspelled Dylan’s name as “Bob Dylon” on the final print. The error went unnoticed for weeks and made original copies highly prized collectors’ items.
The Grateful Dead Connection · Ashbury Street
Masse traveled frequently to California, eventually staying at the Grateful Dead’s communal house on Ashbury Street as the Haight-Ashbury scene blossomed. The Dead loved his 1967 Vancouver Love-In poster so much they kept it permanently framed in their main office.
The L.A. & Laurel Canyon Years
By the late 1960s, Masse lived in Laurel Canyon and worked prolifically in Los Angeles, designing legendary concert posters for the Whisky a Go Go and the Cheetah Club, spending time backstage with The Doors and Janis Joplin.
Vancouver’s Underground Pioneer
Back home, he was the primary artist for Jerry Kruz’s legendary psychedelic venue The Afterthought, and designed iconic pieces for Vancouver stops by Jefferson Airplane, the Steve Miller Blues Band, and Iron Butterfly.
Hollywood & Commercial Work
In the 1980s, Masse moved into film graphic design, creating posters for Total Recall and Back to the Future Part III, contributing to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles television series, and designing the iconic orange fox logo for Vancouver’s C-FOX radio station.
The 1990s Revival
A 1992 Donovan tour poster rejuvenated his passion for gig art. He spent the following decades creating contemporary concert art for U2, Tool, the Smashing Pumpkins, Alanis Morissette, and Red Hot Chili Peppers, bringing Art Nouveau psychedelia into the modern era.
Masso Monday & the Final Work
Masse remained creative until the end, running his “Masso Monday” Facebook series for fans. His final piece — a restored 1967 hand-colored psychedelic portrait of Tom Northcott — was published just a month before his passing as the cover for The History of Vancouver Rock & Roll Vol. 5.
Legacy
Bob Masse’s work defined what a concert poster could be. He gave the psychedelic era its visual language and then carried that language forward for sixty years without ever losing the thread of what made it matter. The Grateful Dead’s visual identity in the 1960s is inseparable from his contribution to it.
Shakedown Citi Brings Dead Bowl to Brooklyn Bowl for Halloween · October 28
Dead Bowl is an ongoing concert and event series hosted by Brooklyn Bowl that celebrates the music and culture of the Grateful Dead. For the upcoming Halloween weekend, NYC-based band Shakedown Citi takes over the venue on Wednesday, October 28, 2026 to kick off the festivities with a dedicated Dead Bowl Halloween show.
Shakedown Citi will deliver their signature improvisational, live-jam interpretations of the Grateful Dead’s catalog alongside a live, fully psychedelic liquid light show by visual artist Steve Pavlovsky of Liquid Light Lab. The performance is inspired by the freewheeling spirit of the legendary 1960s Electric Kool-Aid Acid Tests. The venue will feature themed vendors, unique installations, and unexpected twists throughout the space to create an immersive environment extending well beyond the stage.
Event Details
Wednesday, October 28, 2026 · Doors 6:00 PM · Music 8:00 PM · Ages 18+ · Valid photo ID required · Brooklyn Bowl · 61 Wythe Avenue · Brooklyn, NY
Tickets
Tickets are on sale through Ticketmaster. This is a venue-run series with consistent demand — do not wait on this one if you are in the New York area for Halloween weekend.
Dave’s Picks Vol. 59 · September 26, 1991 · Boston, MA
The official Grateful Dead vault remains highly active for collectors. Dave’s Picks Vol. 59 features the band’s complete, pristine performance from September 26, 1991, in Boston, Massachusetts. The Welnick era at its most settled, the early nineties version of the band fully formed and running with confidence through a complete two-set night. Available now through Dead.net.
Zendog Tonight · Splintered Sunlight · Steely Dead · Steal Your Peach · Dark Star Orchestra
A range of shows on our radar this month in the Philadelphia and South Jersey corridor. The tribute scene is running one of its busiest years on record, in large part because there is no formal Dead touring entity filling stadiums right now. That energy is flowing directly into the tribute circuit, and the results are worth paying attention to.
Zendog is one of the most active Grateful Dead tributes in the region. Their approach is fully improvisational and live-jam oriented rather than note-for-note recreation. If you want to hear the music stretch tonight, this is the show.
Sweeney’s hosts an open-stage Dead community night with Friends of Jerry as the house band. An ongoing series for the local Dead community to gather, play, and listen. A different format than a standard tribute show and worth experiencing.
The premier long-running local Philadelphia Dead tribute headlines a major night at Ardmore Music Hall. Splintered Sunlight has been the gold standard in this region for years. If you have not seen them, this is the one to start with.
Steely Dead fuses the precise studio arrangements of Steely Dan with the free-flowing, melodic improvisations and song segues of the Grateful Dead. A genuinely unique national touring project that makes more sense than it sounds on paper and delivers on it live.
Steal Your Peach performs heavy, high-energy mashup sets dedicated entirely to the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers Band. Two catalogs that share roots deep enough that the combinations land naturally and the improvisational spaces between them are genuinely open territory.
Because there is no formal Dead touring the stadium circuit this season, Dark Star Orchestra has reported one of the busiest, highest-attendance touring years of their career. They remain the premier resource for fans who want historically accurate re-creations of specific vintage setlists. Fall dates continue through the Northeast.
