A 19-disc live Grateful Dead box set—Pacific Northwest '73-'74: The Complete Recordings—will be available September 7, Rhino announced today.
The box set—which, for the less fanatical among you, will also be available in 3-CD and 6-LP formats—contains recordings of the band's shows at the P.N.E. Coliseum in Vancouver, B.C. (6/22/73), Portland Memorial Coliseum in Portland, OR (6/24/73), Seattle Center Arena in Seattle, WA (6/26/73), the P.N.E. Coliseum (5/17/74), Portland Memorial Coliseum (5/19/74) and Hec Edmundson Pavilion at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA (5/21/74). Each show was mastered in HDCD from the original master tapes by Jeffrey Norman at Mockingbird Mastering. The transfers from the masters were transferred and restored by Plangent Processes.
You can listen to the set's first single—an epic, 26-minute medley including "Truckin'" and Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away" recorded at the May 1974 show at the Portland Memorial Coliseum—below.
"This is a boxed set that's a long time coming," said David Lemieux, Grateful Dead archivist and the set's producer. "A couple of the shows have come very, very close to being released on their own through the Grateful Dead's archival release programs of the past 20 years, but we always held off in the hopes and expectations that they'd make a better boxed set."
"The music at each and every one of these six shows is unique, special, inspired, and at times transcendent," Lemieux continued. "The shows contain some of the most famous moments in Grateful Dead live history, including the 'Bird Song' from Vancouver '73, the Portland '74 'Truckin'' jam and the 47-minute 'Playing In The Band' from Seattle '74. Each of these six shows has a distinct musical personality, and we're excited that you can get to know all of them in their entirety, sounding better than we've ever heard them."
The set is available now for pre-order and will be shipped to arrive on September 7. Production of the set is limited to 15,000 individually numbered copies and available exclusively from dead.net for $189.98. The set will also be available in its entirety as a digital download in Apple Lossless ($119.99) and FLAC 192/24 ($149.99) exclusively at dead.net beginning on September 7.
Rhino is also releasing a compilation highlighting the best performances from the box set. Pacific Northwest '73-'74: Believe It If You Need It will will be available as a three-CD set ($24.98) and on digital download and streaming services. The complete Portland Memorial Coliseum show from 5/19/74 will also be released on 180-gram vinyl as a limited edition (7,500 copies) six-LP set ($129.98).
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Jackson is an Associate Editor at GuitarWorld.com. He’s been writing and editing stories about new gear, technique and guitar-driven music both old and new since 2014, and has also written extensively on the same topics for Guitar Player. Elsewhere, his album reviews and essays have appeared in Louder and Unrecorded. Though open to music of all kinds, his greatest love has always been indie, and everything that falls under its massive umbrella. To that end, you can find him on Twitter crowing about whatever great new guitar band you need to drop everything to hear right now.
