All The Years Combine: The DVD Collection

I've always had a healthy respect for Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, but I'm one of the people that was born in the 1960's and came to know them by way of their brief appearance in the Billboard Top 100 with "Touch of Grey" (and to a lesser extent "Hell In a Bucket") and the subsequent MTV video featuring the dancing skeleton puppets. Their brief rennaissance, which began in 1987 and fizzled by 1992 (after which time Jerry turned his attention to his acoustic side projects with David Grisman-a large percentage of which were released posthumously) left many of us wanting more but not really knowing where to look. I DID listen to the nationally syndicated radio show "The Grateful Dead Hour" at one point, but this stopped airing in Chicago some time ago and is only available as a webcast I believe. My generation are much more familiar with Phish,which zoomed in to fill the void after Jerry Garcia's death in 1995, as well as other jam bands such as String Cheese Incident, Dave Matthews Band, Widespread Panic, and a number of others who took the same improvisational music approach and moved it in different directions. At any rate, it's taken me about 2-3 years to study/revisit their catalog, during which time I've picked up a variety of the "Dick's Picks" series, the three "Vault" releases, two of the "Road Trips" series, some "Pure Jerry" titles, all of the Garcia/Grisman releases, the Old & In the Way bluegrass titles, the Merl Saunders/Jerry Garcia Keystone recordings, a greatest hits compilation, some free mp3 downloads from the group's own website and various other live discs made available by Arista. I've also read "Dark Star", "Garcia: An American Life", "Garcia: A Signpost To New Space", "The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics" and "Dead Letters". I've also managed to attend a Furthur concert featuring Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Sunshine Garcia and John Kedlicek (previously reknowned for his participation in the Dark Star Orchestra-a GD cover band). After all of this exploration, the only real gap in my collection was video. Once again, it looked like a daunting task because of the depth and breadth of their catalog. I wanted to focus my attention on the strongest era musically, which I believe to be the Keith & Donna Godchaux era from 1973(?) to 1979. Most deadheads have narrowed this down further, stating that the group was better BEFORE their self-imposed "break" in the mid-1970's than AFTER the break. I would argue that they played at a consistently high level throughout the 70's, and became better musically after the departure (God rest his soul) of Ron McKernan, who may've been a big part of the group's overall attitude/personality, but wasn't really an outstanding singer, musician or songwriter. I'll never quite understand people's fascination with Ron's 1/2 hour rendition of "Turn On Your Lovelight". It's a simple song. Unfortunately, there just aren't many official video releases from the 1970's other than "The Grateful Dead Movie" and "The Closing of Winterland", which are both excellent. So...this collection is a little heavy on stuff from the 1980's, which is basically the Brent Mydland era. By this point the Grateful Dead were slowly descending into self-parody, much like Elvis Presley did in the 1970's. If you watch these titles in succession, you will notice Jerry getting more and more bloated, his voice getting weaker, his hair getting whiter and his solos getting less and less interesting. This process, from 1980-1986, reached it's apex when he went into a diabetic coma for several days. His hard-partying ways had finally caught up to him. He emerged from this low point with renewed vigor, which led to the last great period for the group: from 1987-1990. There's A LOT of footage from this era, as if the band instinctively knew that their window of opportunity was closing fast. And sure enough, Brent Mydland died in 1990 (also from drug use) and the group was never quite the same afterward. They managed to fill Brent's void temporarily with TWO keyboard players, namely Vince Welnick from the Tubes and Bruce Hornsby (who was riding a temporary wave of popularity via his big hit "The Way It Is"). But this era from 1990-1992 is probably most Deadheads' least favorite, and only one title in the collection documents this period (View From the Vault II). In the final analysis, even though the group had their ups and downs (like any band), they never lost their improvisational approach and exploratory spirit. And even at their worst, they were better than most other bands on a good day. It's unfortunate that much of their 1970's work was not officially captured on video, and it's unfortunate that their history was marred by the ill effects of habitual drug use. However, this collection is the best available, and great for one-stop shoppers who don't see the need to quibble about the differences between DVD and Blue-Ray. To be sure, High Definition/Blue-Ray is a great format, but I fear that the cost of refurbishing these old VHS videos might increase the cost of this set two or three times for only an incremental improvement in quality. As of this writing, this entire set can be had for under $100.00, which is an incredible value.

I can't believe how much concert footage is here from 4 decades of the Dead's live performances - in all its glory and not so great moments too. It's all there and more. The only DVD I had of the Dead was the Grateful Dead movie, so buying this set was a no-brainer. And boy am I glad I did! I just watched a couple shows I was at in Pittsburgh and Louisville back in 1990 and the video is stellar and the sound is wonderful. It brought back so many great memories of those shows, touring around with the dead in the late 80's & 90's, as well as pointing out some songs/moments that I didn't remember at all! ;-) I turned it up, started dancing, and was immersed again in another LIVE dead show... with Jerry's beautiful, loving grin on full display, along with his incredible and unique guitar playing I've been missing. I've only watched one of the DVD's so far and it's already worth the $100 dollars I spent. Can't wait to see all the other shows now! There is concert footage in the collection that is not officially listed. What a great DVD collection for all Dead Heads to enjoy for the rest of their lives. Phenomenal. The Grateful Dead will live forever...

My good friend CK married late in life, and his wife is a Grateful Dead fan. We all attended a "Dead & Company" concert a couple years ago, which was a people-watching and musical experience like no other! This 14-DVD box set collection was a recent Christmas gift for her, and it was very much appreciated. The "All The Years Combine: The DVD Collection" box set contains all but three of the official Grateful Dead concert DVD releases to date--the three exceptions being (1) "Rock in the Cradle - Egypt 1978", (2) "Crimson, White and Indigo" live at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia July 1989, and (3) the "Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 years of the Grateful Dead" concerts from summer 2015. Although Jerry Garcia's voice doesn't sound the best in the late 1980's and early 1990's concerts, this nearly-complete concert DVD collection is still a must for the serious Grateful Dead fan. For new or casual Dead fans, I recommend starting with "The Closing of Winterland - NYE 1978" concert, which features the Grateful Dead at their late 1970's peak performing a long and varied setlist.

Sure would have been nice to include the GDM in Blu-ray, huh? But they didn't. The rest is mostly shows from the 1990's when they had video screens set for the big shows. It's still great, no matter what anyone says, to relive that time. Jerry was a little off. We all know that. Still, he came through with some great solos from time to time. I sure miss that guy. The rest of the band was fine throughout. Hey......it's the Dead. We don't need perfection. Run it in the background and TWIRLL!

5-stars because of the great videos (and of course we are talking about the best Rock band in history). This is an excellent collection that includes a majority of the Grateful Dead's commercially released movies. The only negative in my opinion is that the outer box (while it looks very cool) is actually very flimsy. I think they should have gone with a better-made, stronger box. But the DVD's themselves are so great (and they each have their own very adequate plastic case) that I'm still giving a full 5-star rating. I'm certainly very happy with this purchase - that's quite a few hours of excellent Grateful Dead video for a very reasonable price. If you ever loved this band and don't already have many of these movies, I strongly suggest this.

I had been eyeing this box set for a while, and I'm so glad I finally got it. The only DVD that I owned before this was the Grateful Dead Movie from '74. Several of these I hadn't seen in years since they were never released on DVD. At $100 this has to be one of the best bang for your buck DVD collections out there. It is literally everything that has been an official release from the Dead. The quality of both sound and visuals is fantastic, too. My personal favorite era is '69-'74, but the shows from '89-'90 are really fun to watch. The boys are in fine form and the playing is great. If you're into the Dead then this is your box set. Now where's Sunshine Daydream?!

If you don't already have the individual discs, pick up this set (I got it here for about $60). You don't get Sunshine Daydream or Egypt (both released with the CDs) or Fare Thee Well (not a GD show), but there's plenty of music, and the audio and video quality is stellar (Wonderland is a little grainy due to it being video from 1978). Run, don't walk to the buy it now button!

The truckin up to buffalo dvd doesn’t play, but other than that this is amazing. New favorite show is view from the vault III. Wondering if I could maybe get a replacement dvd for the one that doesn’t work!

Musste ich zurückschicken, läuftnicht auf meinem DVD-Player.

Wow, what a box. Contains a lot of important shows, except Veneta and the Rock Palace show in Europe. Also great if you can get them. For many many hours of watching Grateful Dead live concerts. What they did best was to perform live. There is nothing like a Grateful Dead concert. Already worth it for the legendary Closing of Winterland show alone.

If you are a diehard deadhead then chances are you've already bought all of these when they were originally released, but if you haven't yet had a chance to pick up all of the Dead's officially released DVDs then this 14-disc collection is well worth it. You get the big, historical DVD here (The Grateful Dead Movie, Dead Ahead, Closing of Winterland) along with the mid-90s releases they did (Downhill From Here, Ticket to New Years) and new releases (all of the View from The Vaults and the Truckin Up To Buffalo release). It's very cool to finally get the 1987 VHS live/studio release So Far on DVD and they also include a bonus DVD with some previously unreleased live performances and an interview with Grateful Dead archivist (and Ottawa native) David Lemieux that gives some cool hints. The packaging is more minimal than what you got if you purchased all of these individually, but this is also a much more reasonable deal than if you bought everything separately at initial release.

Any Grateful Dead fan should be happy with this set. Most of the concerts are recorded well. Considering the age of some of the material, the sound is not bad. Some of the recorded material is a bit dark while other shows like Downhill from Here and Truckin Up to Buffalo are really good. Most of these shows have recently been rereleased but this is a good price for this set. I was not disappointed.

Great DVD box set. I play these DVD's often - they are great to put on in the background.