The Grateful Dead is heading to the Pacific Northwest with an upcoming box set.  While the band made frequent visits to cities like Portland and Seattle, and occasional visits to Vancouver, official live recordings from these locations have been infrequent.  Rhino and Dead.net are about to change that with the September 7 release of Pacific Northwest '73-'74: The Complete Recordings, a 19-CD box set boasting six previously unreleased shows from two tours.   Pacific Northwest also marks the first Grateful Dead live archival box to include material from multiple years, other than 80-disc 30 Trips Around The Sun box.  If that's too generous a helping of the Dead for your taste, Rhino will also offer a 3-CD "highlights" compilation, and a 6-LP set of the complete Portland '74 show.

The concerts in the full Pacific Northwest set include: P.N.E. Coliseum, Vancouver, B.C. (6/22/73); Portland Memorial Coliseum, Portland, OR (6/24/73); Seattle Center Arena, Seattle, WA (6/26/73); P.N.E. Coliseum, Vancouver, Canada (5/17/74); Portland Memorial Coliseum, Portland, OR (5/19/74); and Hec Edmundson Pavilion, University of Washington, Seattle, WA (5/21/74). Each show has been newly mastered in HDCD from the original tapes by Jeffrey Norman at Mockingbird Mastering. The transfers from the masters were transferred and restored by Plangent Processes.  The Plangent system has also been used for Bruce Springsteen's recent albums box sets.

Grateful Dead archivist and box set producer David Lemieux notes in the press release, "This is a boxed set that's a long time coming. A couple of the shows have come very, very close to being released on their own through the Grateful Dead's archival release programs of the past 20 years, but we always held off in the hopes and expectations that they'd make a better boxed set.  The music at each and every one of these six shows is unique, special, inspired, and at times transcendent. The shows contain some of the most famous moments in Grateful Dead live history, including the 'Bird Song' from Vancouver '73, the Portland '74 'Truckin'' jam, and the 47-minute 'Playing In The Band' from Seattle '74. Each of these six shows has a distinct musical personality, and we're excited that you can get to know all of them in their entirety, sounding better than we've ever heard them."  The collection is housed in a lavish box set designed by Canadian artist Roy Henry Vickers, and includes a 64-page book with an essay by Dead historian Nicholas G. Meriwether and photographs by Richie Pechner.

The Grateful Dead lineup represented on this set included Jerry Garcia, Donna Jean Godchaux, Keith Godchaux, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh and Bob Weir. The recordings of the 1973 shows were made just a few months before the band released its sixth studio album, Wake of the Flood, the band's first LP without founding member Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, who died in March 1973, and the first on their new Grateful Dead Records label.   The 1974 concerts were recorded just a few weeks before the band released its seventh studio album, From The Mars Hotel. Of course, the band sampled tracks from that LP in their performances.  Rarities and older song are also featured on these setlists.

The set is available now for pre-order exclusively at Dead.net and will be shipped to arrive on September 7. Production of the set is limited to 15,000 individually numbered copies and available exclusively from the website for $189.98. If the past is any indication, this box will sell out quickly, so don't miss your chance.  The box will also be available in its entirety as a digital download in Apple Lossless ($119.99) and FLAC 192/24 ($149.99) formats exclusively at dead.net beginning on September 7.

Rhino will release the 3-CD compilation Pacific Northwest '73-'74: Believe It If You Need It that same day to general retail as well as on digital download and streaming services.  The full Portland Memorial Coliseum show from May 19, 1974 will be issued, too, on 180-gram vinyl as a 6-LP set limited to 7,500 copies.

You'll find order links for Pacific Northwest '73-'74: The Complete Recordings below; we'll update with more links as soon as they go live!

Grateful Dead, Pacific Northwest '73-'74: The Complete Recordings (Grateful Dead/Rhino, 2018) (Dead.net)

Includes:

• P.N.E. Coliseum, Vancouver, B.C. (6/22/73)
• Portland Memorial Coliseum, Portland, OR (6/24/73)
• Seattle Center Arena, Seattle, WA (6/26/73)
• P.N.E. Coliseum, Vancouver, Canada (5/17/74)
• Portland Memorial Coliseum, Portland, OR (5/19/74)
• Hec Edmundson Pavilion, University of Washington, Seattle, WA (5/21/74)

Grateful Dead, Pacific Northwest '73-'74: Believe It If You Need It (Grateful Dead/Rhino, 2018) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

CD 1

1. "China Cat Sunflower" (5/19/74)
2. "I Know You Rider" (5/19/74)
3. "Bird Song" (6/22/73)
4. "Box Of Rain" (6/24/73)
5. "Brown-Eyed Women" (5/21/74)
6. "Truckin'" (5/19/74)
7. Jam (5/19/74)
8. "Not Fade Away" (5/19/74)
9. "Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad" (5/19/74)
10. "One More Saturday Night" (5/19/74)

CD 2

1. "Here Comes Sunshine" (6/22/73)
2. "Eyes Of The World" (5/17/74)
3. "China Doll" (5/21/74)
4. "Playing In The Band" (5/21/74)

CD 3

1. "Sugaree" (5/17/74)
2. "He's Gone" (6/22/73)
3. "Truckin'" (6/22/73)
4. "The Other One" (6/22/73)
5. "Wharf Rat" (6/22/73)
6. "Sugar Magnolia" (6/22/73)

Grateful Dead, Portland Memorial Coliseum, Portland, OR, 5/19/74 (Grateful Dead/Rhino, 2018) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

Side A:

1. "Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo"
2. "Mexicali Blues"
3. "Big Railroad Blues"
4. "Black-Throated Wind"

Side B:

1. "Scarlet Begonias"
2. "Beat It On Down The Line"
3. "Tennessee Jed"
4. "Me And Bobby McGee"

Side C:

1. "Sugaree"
2. "Jack Straw"
3. "It Must Have Been The Roses"
4. "El Paso"

Side D:

1. "Loose Lucy"
2. "Money Money"

Side E:

1. "China Cat Sunflower"
2. "I Know You Rider"

Side F:

1. "Promised Land"
2. "Bertha"
3. "Greatest Story Ever Told"
4. "Ship Of Fools"

Side G:                

1. "Weather Report Suite (Prelude/Part I/Part II - Let It Grow)"

Side H:

2. "Wharf Rat"
3. "Big River"

Side I:

1. "Peggy-O"

Side J:

2. "Truckin'"
3. Jam

Side K:

1. "Not Fade Away"
2. "Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad"
3. "One More Saturday Night"

Side L:

1. "U.S. Blues"