All the Years Combine: The Grateful Dead in Fifty Shows

Robertson’s (How To Die: A Book About Being Alive) book is a highly personal selection of what he considers to be the best, or most memorable, Grateful Dead live concerts. He regards the Dead’s early years as their strongest and consequently includes only a handful of shows after 1978 (most are from 1971–78). Universal favorite shows—Cornell University in Ithaca, NY; Harpur College in Binghamton, NY; Old Renaissance Faire Grounds in Veneta, OR—are included, along with some more eccentric choices. The entry for each show is three or four pages long and contains band history, highlights, and Robertson’s thoughts. Deadheads may find some of the assessments to be rather pedestrian, with few new insights into what makes the Dead interesting, but many readers will enjoy the short, funny, and moving memoir about how Robertson became a Deadhead.