Grateful Dead to Release 60-Plus-CD Box Set of Europe 1972 Tour - Spinner

Richard E. Aaron, Redferns

Less than a week after plans for an officialGrateful Deadvideo gamewere announced, the iconic jam band has divulged plans for a 60-plus-CD box set. Available for preorder now through theDead's website, the release will reportedly cost more than $400 when it hits the market next fall.

"We were hot,"guitaristBob WeirtoldRolling Stoneof the 1972 European shows that comprise the sprawling project. Chronicling the band's first-ever overseas trek, Weir said the band's gigs in England, Germany, France, Denmark and Holland were significant because they were"a challenge for us, playing for people not familiar with what we were up to. But we were ready for fresh ears."

Boasting a staggering 22 shows culled from the Dead's archives, the still-untitled, comprehensive project builds on the band's beloved three-album offering 'Europe '72,' which was originally released in November of that year. The forthcoming limited-edition set, which producer David Lemieux is currently mixing and mastering, will boast the kind of onstage explorations that made the Grateful Dead pioneers of the jam band movement.

"Someone would catch fire, and that would spread,"Weir said of the tour, the Dead's first with pianist Keith Godchaux and its last with Ronald"Pigpen"McKernan."I'd catch a riff everyone coalesced around. Then someone else would come up with something that took us another way. It was a collective flash -- time to move on."

The Grateful Dead are also considering similar treatments of their fall 1973 and spring 1990 treks."If we can find an era like this, with a story line and development -- and I have a feeling there is -- there would be merit in doing this again,"Weir said.

The Grateful Dead Perform 'Ramble on Rose' in 1972

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