Grateful Dead - Not a Deadhead

I've seen the Grateful Dead a few times in the late 60's and early 70's and American Beauty and Workingman's Dead are two of my favorite all time albums but I am not a Deadhead. 

Aside from a couple of albums from the early 70's I like the Dead best when they are background music. Especially listening to their live albums. Lots of guitar noodling passing in and out of your conscientiousness and you go about doing other things. They are good for that.

I saw them at the Electric Factory in 1968 along with a couple of other bands. Then in 1970 at a show in a park and then Watkins Glen in 1973 along with The Band and The Allman Brothers Band. Good show and I liked the other two bands much more than the Dead.

My Grateful Dead collection includes ten studio albums and one compilation. I also have ten live sets and probably half of them all 4 CD sets.

I always considered the Dead after the 70's to be an oldies band. The only thing they did in later years that registered on me was A Touch of Grey which of course to me was a song about being an oldies band. I never really understood the deadhead thing. When I was working as a DJ at the Pastime Lounge in the 80's there was this guy that kept coming around wanting to do a Dead night where he would play nothing but live Grateful Dead songs taken from his personal collection of recorded concerts. Apparently that was a thing and there was a bar near UB that was doing it very successfully so he thought a bar near Buff State would work too. We kept telling him to get lost.

So overall I do enjoy listening to the Grateful Dead especially when one of those long live sets is playing in the background while I'm doing things around the house or perhaps when we have some people over in the backyard and the Dead are jamming while everyone is talking and having a good time.