This week, the Grateful Dead YouTube channel is stepping away from live performance videos to serve up the high-def version of the The Grateful Dead Movie‘s opening sequence.
“In Jerry Garcia’s original nearly five hour edit of the Grateful Dead Movie, he had the film opening with Uncle John’s Band. A wonderful track, with a terrific performance filmed during the five night run (and later released as Bonus Track on the DVD in 2004), but it didn’t have the weight of movie’s opening sequence that Jerry wanted,” explains GD archivist/legacy manager David Lemieux. “In a typically inspired moment of brilliance, Jerry came up with the idea of opening the Grateful Dead Movie with a cartoon, just as films had been presented with cartoons going back to the Golden Age of Cinema. Gary Gutierrez was hired to create what, to this day, is one of the wildest, most visually stunning pieces of animation ever paired with music (heck, it’s spectacular on its own!). To my eyes and ears, the Grateful Dead Movie is perfect, and part if its excellence is the opening sequence. When the crew breaks out of jail and lands themselves in Winterland to dance to the tune of U.S. Blues, it is a perfect cinematic, and Grateful Dead, moment.”
To keep up to date with the Grateful Dead “All The Years Live” video series subscribe to the band’s official YouTube page.
Watch the beginning of The Grateful Dead Movie below:
13 Comments comments associated with this post
Bertha
March 25, 2020 at 8:48 amThank you, SD, for finally setting the record straight on Jaggerrich once and for all. He is for here on out a little bitch poo-poo boy, non-entity douche-bag ass-face that everybody hates and nobody ever wants to hear from again. He is the snot that bulids in your nasal passage and the feces that blocked Abe Vigodas’s colon. AHHHHH, JAGGERRICH, YOU ARE LENGEND!!! YOU ARE LESS THE WRETCHED LITTLE CUNT BOY THAT EVERYONE THINKS YOU ARE THAN A SYMBOL OF DECAY!
Sue Ann
March 21, 2020 at 9:51 pmUS Blues!!!
Jaggerrich
March 20, 2020 at 2:09 pmNow, now. Lil Mickey’s got a PhD in drumming, don’t forget.
SteelyDan
March 22, 2020 at 12:40 amShut up, you little penile implant. Hart was the thorn on the rose. Everyone who went to shows back in the day knows this well. We’re only now emboldened to say it. Fuck Hart. He was an interloper shitty drummer. You, penile boy, are insignificant, alas, a non-entity, you who probably saw Jerry in the 90’s! You’re an idiot
Bill
March 20, 2020 at 1:51 pmThey were so much better without that clown Mickey Hart…
SteelyDan
March 22, 2020 at 12:34 amAbso-frigging-lutely!!! Gawd it’s so refreshing to hear from a real head who has ears. Would but those special days sans monkey-drummer could return!
Dan
March 20, 2020 at 9:46 amSaw it opening night at the Ziegfeld theatre NYC. That was a long time ago. Jerry was taking care of business while the rest of the band was jerking off. The seventies were the best of times for The Grateful Dead. Energy combined with youth. It was like rocket fuel.
SteelyDan
March 22, 2020 at 12:43 amAhhhhh! Would but those days could come again…
Slim
March 20, 2020 at 7:47 amShort clip of Jerry with his arm around uncle Sam is the best!
David
March 20, 2020 at 4:52 amThank you for the awesome clip but, uh… 360p is NOT a “high-def version.” A bit disappointed about that!
John Holland
March 19, 2020 at 9:47 pmIn college, every time my friends and I tripped, this video tape was stuck in at some point in the night, even if it was to just watch the opening in slow motion.
Jaggerrich
March 19, 2020 at 8:35 pmWonderful, i clicked on this post, and nobody, (as of yet) has commented: “Ohhh we seen this already, this sucks”.
Maybe we’re all gittin’ a little nicer. Bahh hah hah.
i may dust off my GD Movie dvd this weekend, and settle in to watch, (for the XXXth time).
Garamond
March 22, 2020 at 12:31 amLiterally no one cares. Stop. Just stop. Everyone hates you.