Every Friday at 5 pm ET, nugs.net founder Brad Serling hosts “The Weekly Live Stash” on nugs.net radio – SiriusXM channel 716. Tune in to hear his selections of the best new live music and check out this week’s playlist below featuring professionally mixed recordings from Phish, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Strings, and more.
Nugs subscribers can visit their account page to check their eligibility for four months of SiriusXM All Access. Offer details apply. Subscribers can stream this week’s tracks from the #WeeklyLiveStash, only in the mobile app.
Note: the Phish track is exclusively available in the LivePhish app.
Bust-outs, covers, costumes, guest sit-ins, tricks and treats…a Halloween show just hits a bit different. Explore some of our favorite Halloween concerts from years past, all available to stream with a nugs.net free trial. There’s a lot more out there too, so do some discovery and find the show that’s sure to shake your bones.
The Wizard of Oz themed three-night run concluded with debut covers of the Rolling Stones, The Doors, Elton John, and more. Billy was dressed as the Scarecrow.
‘Away from the Shire’ was a three night celebration of The Lord Of The Rings, culminating with special-guest drummer Duane Trucks of Widespread Panic and tributes to Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, and Black Sabbath.
From one of the most well-regarded tours in the band’s history, and their last Halloween concert to-date, this show has long been hailed a classic and every performance is a highlight.
Dressed as different eras of Elton John, Eggy went undercover and performed nine songs by Elton John, while welcoming special guests from Doom Flamingo to join on keytar and vocals.
This was the first show Dead & Company played together after the passing of lyricist Robert Hunter, and the first two sets featured songs that Hunter had co-written. The show began with the four original Grateful Dead members performing an emotional rendition of “Ripple,” one of Hunter’s many masterpieces.
By 1977, Frank Zappa’s Halloween shows were already the stuff of legends, and this special night capped off six historic shows over a course of four nights
One of the many special Mule-O-Ween’s, this 2013 show featured Robby Krieger of The Doors for all of set 2, with a setlist focused on The Doors catalog reimagined.
The band returned from set break in full costume, inspired by the 1984 rockumentary Spinal Tap. Warren Haynes and co. then ran through tunes from the classic film, with seven debuts and help from The Levee Horns.
In a venue where the Grateful Dead spent many nights, Greensky Bluegrass went with a Dead themed Halloween set at The Warfield, dressing as the band had in white garb for their 1980 album cover of Go To Heaven.
After three months off the road due to health issues, Jerry Garcia was welcomed by a crowd of 17,000 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena in Oakland, CA. He greeted the crowd with a heart-felt “How Sweet It Is” as his first song back on stage.
Dubbed “Protein Pills in the Labyrinth”, members dressed up as several David Bowie characters including Ziggy Stardust, Thin White Duke, and Jareth. The band performed 8 Bowie songs that night.
A “Halloween Star Wars rock fest” with the band members dressed as the movie characters and the show was comprised of Star Wars songs, altered themed lyrics, puns on moe. originals, and never before played covers.
The final night of a four-show run at the Spectrum, a massive double encore where in the final set the band came out dressed as Devo and performed live debuts of “Whip It” and “Sweet Lew”.
The “Talking Radioheads” show featured mashup of originals weaved in and out of songs by the Talking Heads and Radiohead. Members of Dogs In A Pile joined throughout the night to add to the fun(k).
First Time Played: Peace Train (Cat Stevens), Rock The Casbah (The Clash), I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag (Country Joe), Rockin’ in The Free World (Neil Young), Revolution (The Beatles) & Take The Power Back (RATM)
Dressed as Presidents, a VP, and a First Lady, Umphrey’s McGee threw down in Maryland for a Halloween show for the ages where UM fans got to vote on a full set of covers for an ‘All Night Wrong’ set II.
The band debuted 4 covers including “Dooley”, “The Fishin’ Hole”, “Have A Cigar” and “Young Lust”. Fiddle Player Nicki Sanders joined the band on stage for several songs.
Donned in Wizard of Oz costumes, the show pulled from the film’s storyline with a heavy dose of Ozzy and Black Sabbath covers intertwined. In total we heard seven debuts, ranging from Ozzy tracks to Pink Floyd, Grateful Dead, Neil Young, Talking Heads and more.
Jerry Garcia was one of the greatest musical talents the world has ever seen, though one of the most unconventional suspects in the conversation of “best in history.” His notes were imperfect, his voice you could say raspy, and he wasn’t looking to overly flaunt his chops. What made Jerry special was his ability to bring you into the music, and make you FEEL every note. He could make your eyes light up in excitement, but could turn the mood around in an instant with the most subtle of chord progressions. He could captivate an audience in a way that few have ever done, having us all hanging to his words and lost in the music. Jerry’s playing was heartfelt, vulnerable, and exuded emotion.
Often times that emotion kept us on the edge of tears, and at times send us deep into the abyss of our own personal stories we conjure from the music. As we celebrate the life and times of Jerry Garcia during the ‘Days Between,’ we’ve chosen eight songs with the Grateful Dead that exemplify Garcia’s ability to pluck on your heartstrings. Explore a few of these beloved ballads below, and listen to the playlist here in the nugs mobile app, streaming with a free trial.
This Bonnie Dobson original is one of the oldest songs in the Grateful Dead repertoire, a standout track on the Dead’s first studio album and a consistent staple throughout the lifespan of the band. With lyrics that were written in hopes for peace in a time when nuclear annihilation was an international threat, Jerry Garcia used this song as a launch pad into the hearts of his followers. It’s a haunting song, and this 13 minute version encapsulates the essence of humanity with deep improv and a uniquely punchy ending.
While it didn’t make it to the stage until 1993, and was only played 41 times, “Days Between” has made a name for itself as one of the most sentimental ballads in the catalog and will live eternally in the songbook of the Grateful Dead. It’s a shining example of Robert Hunter’s lyrical style, and this version in particular is devastatingly hypnotic with a powerful and explorative outro-jam.
An integral Hunter-penned song that joined the repertoire months before this show, “Standing On The Moon” was one of the strongest vocal features of latter-day Jerry. By the time the song was in rotation the band was setting up in stadiums and performing for 30,000+ people, but even the massive crowds of the 90’s would plummet into silence to hear Jerry sing “I’d rather be with you.” This take from the final performance at JFK Stadium shines, an exemplary rendition of this Grateful Dead classic.
“Ripple” is one of the most well-known songs that the Grateful Dead ever wrote and for very good reason. Garcia and Robert Hunter found a way to touch people even outside of the Dead world with powerful lyrics and the universal message of finding peace in everyday life. This particular track stands as one of the all-time greatest versions, taken from the iconic live-album Reckoning, recorded on 9/26/1980 at the Warfield Theatre.
Stella Blue Grateful Dead 10/21/78 Winterland 1978 – San Francisco, CA
After making its debut at the Hollywood Bowl on Pigpen’s last show in 1972, “Stella Blue” stayed in the rotation all the way through 1995, appearing 328 times on the Grateful Dead’s setlist. Like many Hunter/Garcia masterpieces, the song tells the story of someone down and out on their luck, but the mood brightens triumphantly when Jerry belts out “dust off those dusty strings just one more time, gonna make ‘em shine.” We want to avoid saying any song here is the best of the best, but this version sees all sides of Jerry at his best, and in epic proportions.
Wharf Rat Grateful Dead 5/22/77 Pembroke Pines, FL
While on the subject of down and out characters in Grateful Dead songs, “Wharf Rat” has to come to mind. A sad but inspirational story, the old man down by the docks will never be forgotten, and Jerry’s rendition here won’t either. This tear jerker has a tremendous Jerry rift in the jam and an eternally beautiful quality to it, with Donna’s backup vocals adding the perfect balance to Jerry’s dire conveyance of the lyrics.
Robert Hunter was in a sentimental mood on his 1970 trip to London, as this is the second song on this list to be written in the same afternoon from his stay, accompanied by “Ripple,” as well as “To Lay Me Down” – which also belongs on this list of ballads. The song was often used to bid the fans goodnight, closing out many shows with the lyrics “Fare you well” ringing throughout the audience. 20+ years after it’s first play, this later take from Pine Knob holds a different weight then earlier versions, and you can hear it in Jerry’s voice and playing.
China Doll Grateful Dead Pacific Northwest ’73-’74: Believe it If You Need It
It’s chilling, haunting, and an emotional story that was initially coined “The Suicide Song” by Robert Hunter. There’s a can’t miss acoustic version from the Reckoning album, but with this version from the University of Washington in Seattle on 5/21/74, Jerry’s heart is in it and every note sung and played hits your emotions hard, but leaves you with that sparkling glimmer of hope at the end.
