[Update 8/1/25]: As we celebrate the late Jerry Garcia on his birthday today and prepare to watch Trey Anastasio open for (and hopefully sit in with) Dead & Company at Golden Gate Park during the band’s celebration of 60 years of the Grateful Dead on Sunday, revisit this video of him telling Bob Weir about his life-changing experience at a 1983 Dead show.
In addition to Trey Anastasio Band on Sunday, August 3rd, Dead & Company will be joined by Billy Strings (Friday, August 1st) and Sturgill Simpson (Saturday, August 2nd) during the three-day soiree in San Francisco. If you can’t make it in person, you can tune in to all the action with nightly livestreams on nugs.
All pay-per-view livestream orders come with a 60-day free subscription to nugs All Access, which lets you stream The Heart of Town Grahame Lesh & Friends late-nights in addition to an extensive selection of other livestreams and concert recordings. Order your Dead & Company Golden Gate Park webcasts here.
[Originally published 10/13/16]: Back in 1983, Trey Anastasio was just finding his way in the world. A young man of 19 years, he attended a Grateful Dead concert at the Hartford Civic Center on October 14, 1983.
Reflecting on the experience years later during a panel discussion with the Dead’s Bob Weir, Anastasio said, “It was like getting hit in the head with a baseball bat.” As a smiling Weir responded, “The pleasure’s mine.”
Trey Anastasio Tells Bob Weir About A Life-Changing Grateful Dead Experience in 1983 – 2001
[Video: CTFORUM]
Below, we invite you to listen to the moment that ultimately wound up shaping the music of Phish:
Grateful Dead – Hartford Civic Center – 10/14/1983
[Audio: Jonathon Aizen]
While a previous version of this article noted that this was Anastasio’s first Grateful Dead show—and Trey says it himself to Bob Weir in the video above—a fan named Russell S. Glowatz flagged a passage from The Phish Book and other sources:
“I was still into Led Zeppelin and heavy metal when I transferred to Taft [prep school]. My next-door neighbor there, Chris, was really into the Dead, but I just didn’t buy it. He took me to a show, and I didn’t even pay attention. It was too boring for me. Then he took me again, I took a couple hits of blotter, and I got it.” Trey in Richard Gehr, The Phish Book, 1998, p. 116.
Since Trey was in prep school (grades 9-12) during his first Dead shows, he couldn’t have been 19, nor was it 1983. Trey fumbled in that interview and rewrote history. Let’s rewrite it again…this time correctly!
After watching the Trey/Bobby interview again, it occurred to me he actually does say he was in Taft prep school at the time of his first Dead show, which is further evidence that he misspoke on the year, since he was college-aged in 1983.
Also the kicker is a Relix article, conveniently published online yesterday, that states Trey’s first show was indeed in May of 1980 at The Hartford Civic Center when he was 15 years old. The quote: “Anastasio—who saw his first Dead concert at 15, in May 1980 at the Hartford Civic Center in Connecticut…”
So without further ado, here’s that other non-life-changing concert that Trey saw back in 1980:
Grateful Dead – Hartford Civic Center – 5/10/80
[Audio: Matthew Vernon]
[Originally published 10/13/16]