The latest installment in the Grateful Dead‘s All The Years Live video series is available now on the band’s YouTube page. This entry highlights the Dead’s performance of “Playing In The Band” from Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, CA on October 16th, 1974.
Recorded during the band’s “farewell” run of concerts at Bill Graham‘s iconic Winterland Ballroom, this performance of the Bob Weir staple appears in The Grateful Dead Movie. Well, some of it appears in The Grateful Dead Movie. Audiences tuning in to the Jerry Garcia-directed document of the Dead’s five-show finale from October 16th–20th, 1974—which would ultimately kick off a two-year hiatus—see only the first six minutes of what would end up a 30-plus minute improvisational epic.
Grateful Dead archivist and legacy manager David Lemieux notes in the video’s description,
By the end of the Europe ’72 tour, Playing In The Band had stretched out to close to 20 minutes, where it would remain (and much longer many nights) for the next two+ years, through the end of 1974. This is the version that appeared in the Grateful Dead Movie and was included in its uncut entirety on the CD soundtrack to the Movie, released on 2004.
Watch the Grateful Dead perform “Playing In The Band” at Winterland on October 16th, 1974, as seen in The Grateful Dead Movie, via the player below. The full, uncut version is also available here.
Grateful Dead – “Playing In The Band” – 10/16/74
Previous installments of the Grateful Dead’s All The Years Live video series have included: