The latest installment in the Grateful Dead‘s All The Years Live archive video series is available now on the band’s YouTube page. This entry highlights the Dead’s performance of “Not Fade Away” at Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh, NC on July 10th, 1990.
This second set-closing staple cover of The Crickets comes roaring in as Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, and Brent Mydland are firing on all cylinders vocally. As the band’s three singers (no offense, Phil Lesh) expel their last gasps of air to take the show into the encore break, the Dead round into one final bout of inspired improvisation before a “Brokedown Palace” encore sends everyone home. But first, between the “Not Fade Away” set closer and the encore comes the goosebump-inducing traditional chant of “Know our love will not fade away” from tens of thousands of rabid fans as they eagerly await the band’s return to the stage.
Grateful Dead archivist and legacy manager David Lemieux notes in the video’s description,
Usually attached to Throwing Stones from 1983 onward, Not Fade was played as a set closer once Throwing Stones became its partner. Sometimes, though, Not Fade Away would simply appear out of the post-Drums ballad as the closer on its own, and it always went a little deeper when the Grateful Dead did it this way.
Watch the Grateful Dead perform “Not Fade Away” at Carter-Finley Stadium on July 10th, 1990 below.
Grateful Dead – “Not Fade Away” (The Crickets” – Raleigh, NC – 7/10/90
[Video: Grateful Dead]
Previous installments of the Dead’s ongoing All The Years Live series have included: