The Grateful Dead To Release 80CD Box Set

Grateful Dead fans, it’s time to raid your savings account (if you didn’t already for final show tickets). Rhino is about to release an 80-CD box set containing thirty previously unreleased Dead shows, one from each year of their existence.

30 Trips Around the Sun will be out on September 18 and contains 73 hours of music. Along with the 80-disc set, the album will also be available on a lightning bolt shaped USB drive.

The box set also includes a gold colored 7″ vinyl single of Caution (Do Not Stop on Tracks) (1965) / Box of Rain (Soldier Field, Chicago, 7/9/95), a 288-page book with an extensive, career-spanning essay by Nicholas Meriwether and special remembrances submitted by fans, and a scroll featuring a visual representation of the band’s evolution.

Only 6,500 copies of the album will be produced.

David Lemieux said “When we began discussing audio projects to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Grateful Dead back in 2012, we knew we wanted to do something completely unprecedented. We could think of nothing more exciting or ambitious than a career-spanning overview of the band’s live legacy focused on what best tells the story: complete concerts. Our first criterion was the very best live music to represent any given year in the band’s history. We wanted to make sure that there were not only the tent-pole shows that fans have been demanding for decades but also ones that are slightly more under the radar, but equally excellent. For those who listen to the entire box straight through, chronologically, the narrative of the Grateful Dead’s live legacy will be seen as second to none in the pantheon of music history.”

The original intention of Rhino and the Dead was to reveal four shows included in the box throughout the pre-order period but the full list was leaked:

1966 – 7/3, Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, CA
1967 – 11/10, Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles, CA
1968 – 10/20, Greek Theater, Berkeley, CA
1969 – 2/22, The Dream Bowl, Vallejo, CA
1970 – 4/15, Winterland, San Francisco, CA
1971 – 3/18, Fox Theater, St. Louis, MO
1972 – 9/24, Palace Theater, Waterbury, CT
1973 – 11/14, San Diego Sports Arena, San Diego, CA
1974 – 9/18, Parc des Expositions, Dijon, France
1975 – 9/28, Lindley Meadows, Golden gate Park, San Francisco, CA
1976 – 10/3, Cobo Arena, Detroit, MI
1977 – 4/25, Capitol Theater, Passaic, NJ
1978 – 5/14, Providence Civic Center, Providence, RI
1979 – 10/27, Cape Cod Coliseum, South Yarmouth, MA
1980 – 11/28, Lakeland Civic Center, Lakeland, FL
1981 – 5/16, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
1982 – 7/31, Manor Downs, Austin, TX
1983 – 10/21, The Centrum, Worchester, MA
1984 – 10/12, Augusta Civic Center, Augusta, ME
1985 – 6/24, River Bend Music Center, Cincinnati, OH
1986 – 5/3, Cal Expo Amphitheater, Sacramento, CA
1987 – 9/18, Madison Square Garden, New York City, NY
1988 – 7/3, Oxford Plains Speedway, Oxford, ME
1989 – 10/26, Miami Arena, Miami, FL
1990 – 10/27, Zenith, Paris, France
1991 – 9/10, Madison Square Garden, NY, NY
1992 – 3/20, Copps Coliseum, Ontario, Canada
1993 – 3/27, Knickerbocker Arena, Albany, NY
1994 – 10/1, Boston Garden, Boston, MA
1995 – 2/21, Delta Center, Salt Lake City, UT

Now, the big question that we’re sure so many are wondering, the price. Both the box set and the USB stick have a price of $699.98 on the Grateful Dead’s site, but, if that’s too much for your budget, they will also release a four-CD set culling one song from each of the thirty shows along with the 1965 track Caution (Do Not Stop on Tracks).

The track list for that set:

Disc One
Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks) (1965)
Cream Puff War (1966)
Viola Lee Blues (1967)
Dark Star (1968)
Doin’ That Rag (1969)
Dancing In The Street (1970)
The Rub (1971)
Tomorrow Is Forever (1972)
Here Comes Sunshine (1973)
Disc Two
Uncle John’s Band (1974)
Franklin’s Tower (1975)
Scarlet Begonias ( 1976)
Estimated Prophet (1977)
Samson and Delilah (1978)
Lost Sailor>Saint Of Circumstance (1979)
Deep Elem Blue (1980)
Disc Three
Shakedown Street (1981)
Bird Song (1982)
My Brother Esau (1983)
Feel Like A Stranger (1984)
Let It Grow (1985)
Comes A Time (1986)
Morning Dew (1987)
Not Fade Away (1988)
Disc Four
Blow Away (1989)
Ramble On Rose (1990)
High Time (1991)
Althea (1992)
Broken Arrow (1993)
So Many Roads (1994)
Visions Of Johanna (1995)