Features / The Weekend Stream

Streaming music got a whole lot more live this past week – or is it a whole lot more Dead?

On April 16, the live music platform Nugs.net launched Play Dead, a new app devoted to the live archive of The Grateful Dead. Authorized by the band and Rhino Records, the service brings a digital home to longtime series of authorized Dead recordings that have only been available in physical form – and also offers a leap forward in how the band’s concert releases are managed, with 20 previously unreleased shows available exclusively on the app.

Available as a standalone app for $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year (or as a subscriber add-on to the existing Nugs app for $4.99 per month or $49.99 per year), Play Dead is a lovingly-curated experience that puts the band’s esteemed concert recordings in full focus. Every performance included therein is sourced from high-resolution audio sources (listed in detail, from recording medium to bit rate, next to every set list; some have more in-depth notes than others) and, in the case of the newly-released shows, transferred and mastered by engineer David Glasser. While not every released show is included – again, owing to the variance in available sources – this offering brings together a host of official releases (from vintage live LPs, bonus discs of album reissues, and extensive, exhaustive box sets aplenty) alongside the Dick’s Picks (1993-2005), Road Trips (2007-2011) and Dave’s Picks (2012-present) series. (Nearly all the band’s studio material, barring final album Built to Last (1989), is available in the app – presumably in hi-res, as well – along with compilations and outtakes like the Angel’s Share copyright collections.)

Play Dead‘s user interface offers a lot of fun options for listening. The intuitive search function can start by year (the ability to listen to the Dead’s archive in the order it was recorded is one of the more touted features here), song or album, and the search bar can filter results by title as well as venue. So if you only want tapes from Winterland or every version of “Drums,” you can get those pretty easily. The year-by-year breakdown calls attention to the handsome visuals, with each show presented as the spine of a cassette tape (complete with handwritten J-card and a sticker if the set in question is only partially complete). Tapping on a set will also, in most cases, show you the original release it came from, with the album cover serving as the design on virtual cassette artwork. (The heads even spin while the audio plays!)

And, of course, the real value for hardcore fans lies in the exclusive content. There are a few curated playlists, including one by the band’s legacy manager and archivist David Lemieux – but the real gems are 20 sets released in full on Play Dead for the first time, spanning from a pair of shows at the Berkeley Community Theatre in 1971 to six from New York City’s Madison Square Garden in the fall of 1994 – less than a year before the passing of frontman Jerry Garcia. (Only four songs from any performance have been released before – one tune from the ’71 shows on a 1997 charity compilation, and three of the MSG cuts appeared on either 2019’s Ready or Not, a live approximation of the group’s unfinished 14th studio album, or the Amazon-exclusive edition of the soundtrack to the 2017 Dead documentary Long Strange Trip.) Additional Play Dead releases, curated by Lemieux, are slated to release on the app every Tuesday.

No matter who, where or how you are, Play Dead looks like a fun deal for Deadheads new and old, and a page in a book that acts with similarly formidable catalogues – some already on Nugs, some not – could certainly benefit from reading over. It’s available from the Dead’s store or Apple’s App Store, and the full list of exclusive shows is below.

Newly-released shows included on Play Dead (previously unreleased except where noted)

Berkeley Community Theatre, Berkeley, CA – 8/14/1971 (“Bertha” released on Huckleberry House 30th Anniversary Jam – Huckleberry Youth Program HYP-1967, 1997)
Berkeley Community Theatre, Berkeley, CA – 8/15/1971
Paramount Theater, Portland, OR – 6/4/1976
McNichols Arena, Denver, CO – 8/14/1979
Oakland Auditorium, Oakland, CA – 12/27/1979
Oakland Auditorium, Oakland, CA – 12/30/1979
Capitol Center, Landover, MI – 9/27/1981
Greek Theatre, Berkeley, CA – 7/15/1984
Civic Center, Providence, RI – 4/1/1986
Greek Theatre, Berkeley, CA – 7/15/1988
Greek Theatre, Berkeley, CA – 7/17/1988
Cal Expo Amphitheatre, Sacramento, CA – 8/12/1991
Cal Expo Amphitheatre, Sacramento, CA – 8/13/1991
Knickerbocker Arena, Albany, NY – 3/29/1993
Madison Square Garden, New York, NY – 10/13/1994
Madison Square Garden, New York, NY – 10/14/1994 (“Liberty” and “Corrina” released on Ready or Not – Rhino R2 596008, 2019)
Madison Square Garden, New York, NY – 10/15/1994
Madison Square Garden, New York, NY – 10/17/1994
Madison Square Garden, New York, NY – 10/18/1994 (“Days Between” released on Long Strange Trip Amazon exclusive edition – Rhino R2 559800, 2017)
Madison Square Garden, New York, NY – 10/19/1994