All The Years Combine: The DVD Collection

I've always had a healthy respect for Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, but I'm one of the people that was born in the 1960's and came to know them by way of their brief appearance in the Billboard Top 100 with "Touch of Grey" (and to a lesser extent "Hell In a Bucket") and the subsequent MTV video featuring the dancing skeleton puppets. Their brief rennaissance, which began in 1987 and fizzled by 1992 (after which time Jerry turned his attention to his acoustic side projects with David Grisman-a large percentage of which were released posthumously) left many of us wanting more but not really knowing where to look. I DID listen to the nationally syndicated radio show "The Grateful Dead Hour" at one point, but this stopped airing in Chicago some time ago and is only available as a webcast I believe.My generation are much more familiar with Phish,which zoomed in to fill the void after Jerry Garcia's death in 1995, as well as other jam bands such as String Cheese Incident, Dave Matthews Band, Widespread Panic, and a number of others who took the same improvisational music approach and moved it in different directions.At any rate, it's taken me about 2-3 years to study/revisit their catalog, during which time I've picked up a variety of the "Dick's Picks" series, the three "Vault" releases, two of the "Road Trips" series, some "Pure Jerry" titles, all of the Garcia/Grisman releases, the Old & In the Way bluegrass titles, the Merl Saunders/Jerry Garcia Keystone recordings, a greatest hits compilation, some free mp3 downloads from the group's own website and various other live discs made available by Arista. I've also read "Dark Star", "Garcia: An American Life", "Garcia: A Signpost To New Space", "The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics" and "Dead Letters". I've also managed to attend a Furthur concert featuring Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Sunshine Garcia and John Kedlicek (previously reknowned for his participation in the Dark Star Orchestra-a GD cover band).After all of this exploration, the only real gap in my collection was video. Once again, it looked like a daunting task because of the depth and breadth of their catalog. I wanted to focus my attention on the strongest era musically, which I believe to be the Keith & Donna Godchaux era from 1973(?) to 1979. Most deadheads have narrowed this down further, stating that the group was better BEFORE their self-imposed "break" in the mid-1970's than AFTER the break. I would argue that they played at a consistently high level throughout the 70's, and became better musically after the departure (God rest his soul) of Ron McKernan, who may've been a big part of the group's overall attitude/personality, but wasn't really an outstanding singer, musician or songwriter. I'll never quite understand people's fascination with Ron's 1/2 hour rendition of "Turn On Your Lovelight". It's a simple song.Unfortunately, there just aren't many official video releases from the 1970's other than "The Grateful Dead Movie" and "The Closing of Winterland", which are both excellent. So...this collection is a little heavy on stuff from the 1980's, which is basically the Brent Mydland era. By this point the Grateful Dead were slowly descending into self-parody, much like Elvis Presley did in the 1970's. If you watch these titles in succession, you will notice Jerry getting more and more bloated, his voice getting weaker, his hair getting whiter and his solos getting less and less interesting. This process, from 1980-1986, reached it's apex when he went into a diabetic coma for several days. His hard-partying ways had finally caught up to him. He emerged from this low point with renewed vigor, which led to the last great period for the group: from 1987-1990. There's A LOT of footage from this era, as if the band instinctively knew that their window of opportunity was closing fast. And sure enough, Brent Mydland died in 1990 (also from drug use) and the group was never quite the same afterward. They managed to fill Brent's void temporarily with TWO keyboard players, namely Vince Welnick from the Tubes and Bruce Hornsby (who was riding a temporary wave of popularity via his big hit "The Way It Is"). But this era from 1990-1992 is probably most Deadheads' least favorite, and only one title in the collection documents this period (View From the Vault II).In the final analysis, even though the group had their ups and downs (like any band), they never lost their improvisational approach and exploratory spirit. And even at their worst, they were better than most other bands on a good day. It's unfortunate that much of their 1970's work was not officially captured on video, and it's unfortunate that their history was marred by the ill effects of habitual drug use. However, this collection is the best available, and great for one-stop shoppers who don't see the need to quibble about the differences between DVD and Blue-Ray. To be sure, High Definition/Blue-Ray is a great format, but I fear that the cost of refurbishing these old VHS videos might increase the cost of this set two or three times for only an incremental improvement in quality. As of this writing, this entire set can be had for under $100.00, which is an incredible value.

My good friend CK married late in life, and his wife is a Grateful Dead fan. We all attended a "Dead & Company" concert a couple years ago, which was a people-watching and musical experience like no other! This 14-DVD box set collection was a recent Christmas gift for her, and it was very much appreciated.The "All The Years Combine: The DVD Collection" box set contains all but three of the official Grateful Dead concert DVD releases to date--the three exceptions being (1) "Rock in the Cradle - Egypt 1978", (2) "Crimson, White and Indigo" live at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia July 1989, and (3) the "Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 years of the Grateful Dead" concerts from summer 2015. Although Jerry Garcia's voice doesn't sound the best in the late 1980's and early 1990's concerts, this nearly-complete concert DVD collection is still a must for the serious Grateful Dead fan. For new or casual Dead fans, I recommend starting with "The Closing of Winterland - NYE 1978" concert, which features the Grateful Dead at their late 1970's peak performing a long and varied setlist.

I was at many of these concerts! What an awesome set.

This is an awesome collection for the price! My husband is a huge fan of the The Grateful Dead. He loved it!!

High Quality recordings of Grateful Dead songs. This was a present for Grateful Dead groupies and they loved it!

I can't believe how much concert footage is here from 4 decades of the Dead's live performances - in all its glory and not so great moments too. It's all there and more. The only DVD I had of the Dead was the Grateful Dead movie, so buying this set was a no-brainer. And boy am I glad I did! I just watched a couple shows I was at in Pittsburgh and Louisville back in 1990 and the video is stellar and the sound is wonderful. It brought back so many great memories of those shows, touring around with the dead in the late 80's & 90's, as well as pointing out some songs/moments that I didn't remember at all! ;-) I turned it up, started dancing, and was immersed again in another LIVE dead show... with Jerry's beautiful, loving grin on full display, along with his incredible and unique guitar playing I've been missing. I've only watched one of the DVD's so far and it's already worth the $100 dollars I spent. Can't wait to see all the other shows now! There is concert footage in the collection that is not officially listed. What a great DVD collection for all Dead Heads to enjoy for the rest of their lives. Phenomenal. The Grateful Dead will live forever...

The truckin up to buffalo dvd doesn’t play, but other than that this is amazing. New favorite show is view from the vault III. Wondering if I could maybe get a replacement dvd for the one that doesn’t work!

If you don't already have the individual discs, pick up this set (I got it here for about $60). You don't get Sunshine Daydream or Egypt (both released with the CDs) or Fare Thee Well (not a GD show), but there's plenty of music, and the audio and video quality is stellar (Wonderland is a little grainy due to it being video from 1978). Run, don't walk to the buy it now button!