Revisit This Grateful Dead Boston 1976 Show

On Wednesday, Record Store Day revealed their annual release list, featuring over 350 titles. It showcases a variety of gems, from Bruce Springsteen’s 2024 set at the Sea.Hear.Now festival to Olivia Dean’s BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge. It also includes a Grateful Dead live album: Boston Music Hall, Boston, MA 6/11/76.

The show is the third of four consecutive nights at Boston Music Hall. The new live album spans across five LPs, pressed on 180-gram vinyl, and features classics like “Scarlet Begonias” and “Brown-Eyed Women.” The set derives from 2020’s CD box set June 1976, which received tape restoration and speed correction. Limited to 7,600 copies, it was remastered for vinyl by Jeffrey Norman, and produced by the band’s archivist, David Lemieux.

“The fifth show of the Grateful Dead’s comeback tour in June 1976 finds the band firing on all cylinders as they settle back into life on the road,” Lemieux said in a statement. “A set list filled with older material (‘Candyman,’ ‘Eyes Of The World,’ ‘Tennessee Jed’), new material (‘Might As Well,’ ‘Lazy Lightning’ > ‘Supplication,’ ‘Samson and Delilah’), and new arrangements of classics from the Dead’s early days (‘St. Stephen,’ ‘Dancing In The Street’), this new iteration of the Grateful Dead featuring the return of [drummer] Mickey Hart is one of the most powerful and precise versions of the band to date.”

“With the Wall of Sound retired, the Dead were playing the intimate confines of small theaters for the first time in years, and the perfection they achieved on this tour is on full display on June 11, 1976, in Boston,” he added. “The magnificence of the vocal arrangements is one of the many new sonic highlights of the 1976 Grateful Dead, many Dead Heads saying the vocal harmonies never sounded as great as they did in June 1976. Songs like ‘Looks Like Rain’ and ‘The Music Never Stopped’ show off this renewed focus on the spectacular vocals the Dead were able to achieve.”

In addition to Boston Music Hall, the Dead will also release On The Back Porch Vol. 3, their collaboration with Dogfish Brewery. Both are the band’s first Record Store Day releases following the death of guitarist Bob Weir, who died last month at 78. Record Store Day takes place on April 18; Bruno Mars is this year’s ambassador.

Boston Music Hall Track List

Side 1
1. “Might As Well”
2. “Mama Tried”
3. “Tennessee Jed”
4. “Cassidy”

Side 2
1. “Candy Man”
2. “Big River”

Side 3
1. “Scarlet Begonias>”
2. “Looks Like Rain”

Side 4
1. “It Must Have Been The Roses”
2. “Lazy Lightning>”
3. “Supplication”

Side 5
1. “Brown-Eyed Women”
2. “Promised Land”

Side 6
1. “St. Stephen>”
2. “Dancing In The Street”

Side 7
1. “The Music Never Stopped”
2. “Ship Of Fools”
3.” Samson and Delilah”

Side 8
1. “Sugaree”

Side 9
1. “Sugar Magnolia>”
2. “Eyes Of The World”

Side 10
1. “Stella Blue”
2. “Sunshine Daydream”
3. “Johnny B. Goode”