Long Strange Trip' through Grateful Dead Red Rocks history

The Grateful Dead made their Red Rocks debut on July 7, 1978 as part of a two-night stand that would go down in history, not only as the legendary band’s debut at the legendary venue, but the show on July 8, 1978 is widely considered one of the Grateful Dead’s best. Of course, the famed venue became one of the Grateful Dead’s favorite places to play; they would go on to play Red Rocks a total of 20 times between 1978 and 1987.

So it’s fitting that the Martin Scorsese-produced documentary on the band, “Long Strange Trip,” will make its Colorado premiere Thursday, May 25 at Red Rocks for the Film on the Rocks summer movie series (click here for tickets). In honor of the premiere, AXS is taking a look at some of the Grateful Dead’s most legendary Red Rocks performances. Here are the Grateful Dead’s three best Red Rocks shows.

3. Aug. 31, 1978

1978 was a big year for the Grateful Dead at Red Rocks. Not only did they make their debut in July, but they would also follow up with another two-night stand on Aug. 30 and 31, totaling four Red Rocks shows in '78. The show on Aug. 31 was notable for the live debut of the Grateful Dead classic “Shakedown Street,” as well as the lesser-known “From the Heart of Me.” Also of note was the monster second set closing suite of “Terrapin Station”>”Playing in the Band”>”Drums” (16 minutes worth)>”Space”>”Not Fade Away”>”Black Peter”>”Sugar Magnolia.” You can check out the full setlist via Dead.net.

2. Sept. 7, 1985

The Dead would descend on Red Rocks in the late summer of 1985 for another show that would go down in the books. The band opened with an extremely rare cover in the folk standard “The Frozen Logger.” The Dead only played the song eight times in their 30-year career and hadn’t played it since 1972. The second set was pretty much a non-stop affair and included the epic “Dear Mr. Fantasy”>”Hey Jude Reprise”>”Dear Mr. Fantasy” sandwich. Other highlights included Neil Young’s “Comes a Time” and Bob Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue" as the encore closer. You can view the full setlist here and check out a portion of the Sept. 7, 1985 show below.

1. July 8, 1978

As mentioned above, this show was not only part of the Grateful Dead’s two-night Red Rocks debut but is widely regarded as one of the greatest Grateful Dead shows of all time. While the first set was a pretty standard '70s Dead set, the band was on fire and things really got interesting with the second set opening sequence of “Estimated Prophet”>”The Other One”>”Eyes of the World.” Also going down in Dead lore was the encore, which featured “Terrapin Station”>”One More Saturday Night” and the Warren Zevon classic “Werewolves of London” to close out the night. You can stream the audio from the Grateful Dead’s July 8, 1978 performance at Red Rocks in its entirety above.

Special thanks to Jay Bianchi.

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