Grateful Dead To Air 'The Closing Of Winterland' (12/31/78) For This Week's 'Shakedown Stream' [Watch]

The Grateful Dead will take fans back to The Closing Of Winterland on New Year’s Eve 1978 for this week’s Shakedown Stream webcast on Friday, May 1st. This monumental performance saw the band perform for nearly six hours with plenty of special guests to help ring in 1979 and say goodbye to the famed San Francisco ballroom. Prior to the stream, Donna Jean Godchaux, the only woman to ever join the Grateful Dead, will be the featured guest on the pre-show with hosts David Lemieux and Gary Lambert. Previous Shakedown Stream Pre-Show guests have included NBA Hall of Fame inductee/avowed Deadhead Bill Walton and well-regarded music journalist Jesse Jarnow.

Donna Jean began performing with the band as a backing vocalist in 1971, shortly after her husband Keith Godchaux joined the Dead as their new pianist. They both remained on as key members of the Dead throughout what is arguably their strongest decade before leaving in 1979. Godchaux rarely gives interviews about her time with the Dead—although she did appear in 2017’s Long Strange Trip—so the involvement of a former member makes for exciting news for Deadheads who will want to turn on and tune in to hear what she has to say about the band’s infamous 1978 New Year’s Eve performance.

Both the Shakedown Stream pre-show and concert broadcast will be streamed via the YouTube videos below this Friday (5/1) beginning at 8 p.m. EST/5 p.m. PST.

Shakedown Stream Pre-Show with Dave & Gary Plus Donna Jean Godchaux

[Video: Grateful Dead]

Grateful Dead Shakedown Stream – The Closing Of Winterland (12/31/78)

[Video: Grateful Dead]

The band has previously shared the pro-shot footage from their infamous 1978 New Year’s Eve concert as part of their “All The Years Live” archive series, including performances of “Samson And Delilah”, “St. Stephen”, “Not Fade Away”, and “Sugar Magnolia”/”Scarlet Begonias”/”Fire On The Mountain”.