Dead at Cornell

The Spring 1977 Grateful Dead Tour is widely regarded as one of the best tours of the band's long history. Night after night of stellar playing, and fortunately for us, all preserved on tape. Today happens to be the 30th anniversary of the band's legendary performance at Barton Hall, Cornell University, often considered to be one of the best live dead performances ever. Ask any deadhead about 'Cornell' and you are likely to get a broad smile and a gushing description.

Typically, Cornell was one of the first tapes added to a fledgling collection. Back in the day, analog cassette tapes were traded at shows, or through the mail using trader's networks. With the advent of e-mail, tape trading expolded in popularity, and tapes were eventually replaced by DAT, CD, FLAC and MP3. For a while, a huge number of high quality recordings were available at Internet Archive, before the band put the kibosh on that last year (see one of my early posts on this subject). Today, other sources are available. Go to Deadpod and you can download a weekly podcast featuring some wonderful shows (you can also do this through itunes). Currently, Deadpod is featuring Cornell in all its glory. If you are a newbie or a tie-dyed-in-the-wool fan who hasn't heard this show in a awhile, go check it out.