The Record Collector

Fillmore West 1969, The Complete Recordings is a limited edition box set of 10,000 numbered copies, released in November 2005. It features four complete concerts by the Grateful Dead spread across 10 CDs. These concerts, performed on four consecutive nights from February 27 through March 2, 1969, were the basis for the Live/Dead LP, released in 1969, which was the first ever Grateful Dead 16-track live album.

The Grateful Dead have long been releasing live recordings in their Dick's Picks, Road Trips, Dave's Picks, and other archival series, but unlike this box those shows were two-track stereo recordings recorded directly from the soundboard. The shows in this box set were recorded using a 16-track recorder and were later mixed down to stereo for CD.

The sound of this set is stellar right from beginning. The 'Dead were incredible improvisors and this recording captures them at their improvisational best. Some people don't like it when musicians trade off each other like this but I love it. I could listen to this kind of jamming all day and night. If you let it, the music transports you to places inside your head that you never knew were there. Dark Star, from the February 28th show, is a prime example of this. Put it on, turn off the lights and close your eyes. It's as good as it gets to seeing the Grateful Dead live in concert - as I have, many years ago - and every time I play it I hear something I haven't heard before.

A bonus disc released with this box set includes selections from two additional Fillmore West shows; one on June 8, 1969 and another on February 7, 1970. It also includes a 30-minute version of Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks) that was recorded on June 14, 1968, during the band's debut run of shows at Bill Graham's newly opened Fillmore East in New York, which had the Grateful Dead headlining a show that also featured the Jeff Beck Group.

Lindsay Planer, on AllMusic, said, "Few concert runs are as highly lauded by Grateful Dead enthusiasts as February 27 through March 2, 1969, at the Fillmore West in San Francisco … At the very heart of what made the Grateful Dead an anomaly in rock & roll was their ability to improvise and interact in order to make each and every experience different from the last, or the next. Over the course of the Fillmore West 1969: The Complete Recordings are nine and a half hours of proof ... Curious parties might find the Fillmore West 1969 three-disc distillation an adequate substitute. However, earnest Deadheads should take whatever measures necessary to obtain this package."

I have to agree with Planer's recommendation. This was an almost legendary and very historic run of shows that also just happens to sound really good, even in digital format. But … number 2458 of this limited edition box recently sold on eBay for $1,250 US, and another copy sold for $1,934.97. I would never have shelled out that much of my hard-earned cash for it, but many Grateful Dead fans - Deadheads, as they are called - wouldn't have even flinched as they handed you the money, which they would probably have obtained selling oranges or handmade scented candles. It is, they will tell you, just money after all. I sometimes wish as I was that nuts!

I have a lot of collectible box sets, but as far as return on investment goes this one takes the cake. I bought my copy the day it was released and paid - I think - $149 US for it. I now have the first three nights on vinyl, and - perhaps - if they ever get around to releasing the fourth night - I might one day sell my CD box.

Or maybe not.

And yes, the vinyl sounds that much better.

UPDATE: I traded this box for $300 store trade and $200 cash. But if you're a serious Grateful Dead fan and you don't have the vinyl, then this is …