Live Dead on YouTube: 3-28-81 at the Rockpalast Festival

There’s an insane amount of live Grateful Dead shows on YouTube these days, and I’ve fallen hard into the rabbit hole the past couple of weeks.

I’ve spent some time traveling back to the late 80’s at Alpine Valley (to think I was a clueless 18 year old just 45 minutes away at this moment), the early 90’s at the Sam Boyd Silver Bowl in Las Vegas (where I saw my final Dead show), and most recently – today in fact – over in Germany at the 1981 Rockpalast Festival.

The show really takes off midway through the first set, with the run of “Sugaree”, “Me & My Uncle”, “Mexicali Blues”, and the funky disco-jamming of “Shakedown Street.”

Here’s the Dead at the Rockpalast Festival in March 1981 – all three hours and twenty-two minutes – featuring a guest appearance late in the show by a Mr. Pete Townshend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ldse7hpLphY