Screengrab via Grateful Dead "Let It Grow 6/9/1991"
The latest installment in the ongoing Grateful Dead archival video series “All The Years Live” is available now on the band’s YouTube page. This new release comes in the form of a performance of “Let It Grow” from June 9th, 1991 at Buckeye Lake in Thornville, OH. The song comes just as the sun sets over what is now known as Legend Valley, the site of many popular Ohio music festivals. The venue became a favorite summer destination for the Dead starting in 1988 and remained a regular stop throughout the rest of the band’s career.
The transitional time of 1991 found the Dead touring with two keyboardists as Vince Welnick came into the fold, while temporary substitute Bruce Hornsby stuck around for a bit longer. Grateful Dead archivist David Lemieux notes in the video’s description,
One of the strongest, most inspired tours of the Dead’s final decade and a half of performing was the Summer Tour of 1991. With the two new keyboardists now fully ensconced in the Grateful Dead’s sound and repertoire, it was an unstoppable machine that hit the road for shows that summer. Countless A+ concerts were on this tour, at Deer Creek, Giants Stadium, RFK, Pine Knob, Soldier Field, and this mighty fine performance at Buckeye Lake in Ohio. Like Bird Song, Let It Grow was one of the longer, more jamming songs the Dead played in their first sets after 1976. Unlike the freeform improvisation of Bird Song, though, Let It Grow was very structured and required precision focus by all seven players, and this one most certainly has that.
Watch the Grateful Dead perform “Let It Grow” at Buckeye Lake on June 9th, 1991.
