custom route
Build a path from a song, era, lineup, venue, or mood.
Describe what you are chasing, choose the number of stops, and Deadhead High will shape a route from the catalog.
Grateful Dead show guide
Deadhead High Listen to Grateful Dead shows from here.
ChooseUse Guides, Songs, Shows, or Paths.
ListenStart playback through Archive or Relisten links.
TrackSave heard shows, ratings, notes, and favorites.
ExploreGo deeper with Live Dead Guides.
No account is required to search, open a show, or listen. Sign in only if you want to sync notes and shows you hear across devices.
Today's Daily Dead
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today's daily dead
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New today
deadhead library
Good places to keep digging.
Internet Archive
The main public listening shelf for live Grateful Dead recordings and source pages.
Relisten
A fast way to stream shows by date, tape, and year when you want to listen.
JerryBase
Deep setlist, venue, song, and personnel research for the Dead and Garcia family bands.
Grateful Dead Archive
UCSC's online collection of posters, photos, interviews, fanzines, and ephemera.
David Dodd's Song Notes
David Dodd's Greatest Stories Ever Told essays on lyrics, song history, references, and Dead scholarship.
DeadDisc
Discographies, official releases, guest credits, song listings, and release details.
ways in
Choose where to begin.
Start with a guided path, today’s pick, a show search, or your own listening list.
Pick a path. Press play.
family tree
The map starts with the Grateful Dead, then leaves room for the branches listeners naturally follow: Jerry Garcia Band, Dead & Company, Phil & Friends, RatDog, solo Jerry, and beyond.
learn
Live Dead Guides.
Deep dives into the music, shows, and sound of the Grateful Dead.
Live Dead Guides
Latest deep dive
Feature 001 · First shows
What Grateful Dead Show Should You Listen to First?
Cornell University on May 8, 1977 is the most defensible first complete concert. That does not make it the band’s uncontested greatest performance—or a summary of its 30-year history.
Deadhead High Editorial · 12 minute read
Feature 002 · Lineups and eras
15 minute read
How the Grateful Dead Changed
A guide to the personnel changes that altered the band’s rhythm, keyboards, vocals, repertoire, improvisation, and concert scale.
Feature 003 · Recording sources
15 minute read
Audience Tape, Soundboard, Matrix, or Official Release?
Why recordings of the same concert sound different, what each source preserves, and how copying and restoration change what reaches the listener.
Feature 004 · Concert structure
14 minute read
How a Grateful Dead Concert Worked
How first sets, linked second-set sequences, Drums, Space, ballads, closers, and encores developed into a flexible concert architecture.
Feature 005 · Improvisation
15 minute read
How Grateful Dead Jams Worked
How songs remained intact, became transitions, opened into collective improvisation, or gave way to recurring themes, Drums, and Space.
Feature 006 · Songs in motion
16 minute read
How Grateful Dead Songs Changed Live
How tempo, groove, instrumentation, endings, pairings, and set placement changed what familiar songs could do.
Feature 007 · Famous pairings
17 minute read
How Famous Grateful Dead Song Pairings Came to Be
Why a composed suite, a habitual segue, a reprise, and a transition discovered onstage can all look like the same arrow on a setlist.
Human ideas, deep research, visible sources. Read our editorial standards.
the main attraction
Listening Paths.
Open a route to see why these shows belong together, what to listen for, and how far you’ve gotten.
Every path needs a reason.
listening paths
Pick a route through the live catalog.
Each path has a reason, a sequence, and a next stop. Use the route map to jump between shows, then open the detail that explains why the stop belongs.
random picker
The Wheel.
Pick a show.
Select a category or spin for a show from the catalog.
Results use catalog data, setlists, eras, and selected show tags.
song history
Song Tracker.
Type a song to see its first performance, last performance, and every show in between.
One song. The whole arc.
daily ritual
Daily Dead.
Song of the Day, a featured show, and first and last performances where that song appears.
Song of the Day, featured show, and known performances.
research queue
Show Research.
Draft show notes from the research assistant, ready for source review before they become public guide copy.
Drafts first. Guide copy after review.
daily trivia
Test Your Head.
A quick way to pick up context before choosing a show.
Know more. Hear more.
visuals
Lights.
Full-screen visual modes for listening: space, liquid color, stars, mandalas, and sunshine.
Visual modes for listening
show check-in
The show list.
Search by date, venue, city, year, era, song, or tag. Check-ins and notes stay synced across the whole site.
Search dates, venues, songs, and listening links.
Use one search for dates, venues, cities, states, songs, tags, eras, and plain-language filters. Anything you check here also checks off inside Paths, Daily, Wheel, and My Dead.
my dead
Your listening history.
Shows listened, shows attended, favorites, ratings, notes, and badges.
Save listening history, notes, and badges.
about
Deadhead High.
A fan-built guide for finding, listening to, and tracking Grateful Dead shows.
Catalog tools for live shows
Deadhead High helps listeners search the live catalog, follow guided paths, and keep a record of shows they have heard.
The site points to Archive and Relisten for playback. It does not host audio.
Show availability and listening links come from Archive and Relisten. Setlist data is sourced from gdshowsdb, an MIT-licensed project by Jeff Smith.
deadhead high blog
Coming soon.
West Virginia Jed will share personal show reflections, launch notes, and what it feels like to use Deadhead High in the wild. Scarbot Begonias will handle feature notes, updates, and technical field reports.
West Virginia Jed
Coming soon: show reflections.
West Virginia Jed shares personal show reflections, launch notes, listening-life notes, and what Deadhead High feels like from the inside.
Coming soon
Scarbot Begonias
Coming soon: field notes.
Scarbot Begonias shares site updates, feature notes, technical issues, fixes, and practical notes about what changed.
Coming soon