The June 17th, 1991 Grateful Dead performance at New Jersey’s Giants Stadium will hit the silver screen for the 2019 edition of the band’s annual Meet-Up At The Movies concert film event. The event, which takes place on August 1st—Jerry Garcia‘s birthday—will see the 1991 show screened in full in cinemas around the country (and other parts of the world) for one night only.
Ahead of this year’s event, the band’s official archivist David Lemieux has shared his thoughts on why the Dead’s 1991 tour stands out in a vault filled with memorable concert runs throughout their 30-year career as one of America’s most enduring rock acts.
“I’m as guilty of hyperbole when it comes to the Dead as anyone who loves this band, but this really is a remarkable show,” Lemieux said in a recent interview with the Asbury Park Press while discussing the state of the band in the later years of their career. The 1991 tour saw the band perform with keyboardists Vince Welnick and Bruce Hornsby, a sudden change from a decade’s worth of shows with Brent Mydland, who had died less than a year earlier in July 1990.
“You’ve got these seven guys on stage and they’re playing distinctly as seven incredible musicians and they’re all heading in the same direction, but it’s those moments when they all come together and they play as one, and that’s what I always look for in Grateful Dead music,” Lemieux continued. “I don’t even know if it’s so much a sound as it is a feel, and when it happens — and it happens virtually every moment of this show, where they’re just constantly playing as one — it is incredible.”
According to Lemieux, the 1991 Giants Stadium show marked the first time in the Dead’s career where they opened the show with “Eyes Of The World”, which featured some wonderful interplay between Hornsby and guitarist Jerry Garcia to get the night going.
“You hear how inspired (they are), and I think another good word for it is engaged. They were present, and that’s something that I think when you’re touring and you’ve played by this point 2,000 shows together the level engagement might not be what it is every night. But on this night you hear it … And you can see it in the interaction, the eye contact interaction, but also the musical interaction where they give each other enough space to breathe. … It’s a jazz song and it’s a perfect jazz band at this moment.”
Lemieux will also be featured in the one-night concert film screening, as he’s set to share an exclusive look at the recently-announced Dave’s Picks Vol. 31 box set.
For tickets and information on which cinemas this year’s “Meet-Up At The Movies” will take place, click here.
[H/T Asbury Park Press]
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