INDIVIDUALLY NUMBERED, LIMITED EDITION COLLECTION
AVAILABLE EXCLUSIVELY AT DEAD.NET AND SHIPS IN SEPTEMBER
 sketch of new box set |
Grateful Dead slipped the
shores of America and crossed the pond for its first-ever major European tour in April 1972. The legendary 22-
show run spawned Europe ’72, a live triple album that remains one of the band’s best-selling and most
beloved releases. A tour this momentous deserves a boxed set of historic proportions and Dead.net has stamped your passport to relive every note from the European tour
with Europe ’72: The Complete Recordings, an individually numbered, limited edition collection
that includes more than 60 discs with over 70 hours of music featuring every show from what is arguably the
Grateful Dead’s greatest tour. The box set ships in September.
Europe ’72: The Complete Recordings is housed in a replica steamer trunk reminiscent of the ones
prevalently used at the time. The travel
chest contains tour memorabilia, a coffee-table book with never-before-seen photos, and a comprehensive essay
by noted Dead author Blair Jackson. Each performance will also be accompanied by an essay specific to
the show written by top Dead scholars including David Gans, Gary Lambert, Nicholas Meriwether, and
Steve Silberman.
Jeffrey Norman, the primary mixer of the Dead’s archival multi-track material for the past 15 years, is
mixing each
show from the original 16-track recordings.
Due to ship in September, the boxed set is available exclusively from Dead.net, which is taking orders now. The
price of the collection is $450, which works out to the remarkably low price of about $20 for each show, or roughly
the cost of a transatlantic flight from New York City to London in 1972 (price of time machine not included).
The first 3,000 fans to order will have
their copy personalized with a name requested by the purchaser. Once the 3,000 order goal is reached by April 1,
Dead.net will continue to take orders through the summer but will limit production of the collection to a maximum
of 7,200 pieces, all of which will be individually numbered. Orders will no longer be taken at some date (to be
determined) later in the summer.
The tour offers a snapshot of a band at the top of its game, still ascending in the wake of three straight hit albums—
Workingman’s Dead, American Beauty, and the live Grateful Dead (“Skull & Roses”). It had been a
year since
the lineup had gone to its single-drummer configuration, six months since Keith Godchaux had been
broken in as the group’s exceptional pianist, and this marked the first tour to feature Donna Godchaux as
a member of the touring band.
There was a ton of new, unreleased material that came into the repertoire in the fall of ’71 and during the spring of
’72, including “Tennessee Jed,” “Jack Straw,” “Mexicali Blues,” “Comes A Time,” “Ramble On Rose,” “One More
Saturday Night,” “Black-Throated Wind,” “Looks Like Rain” and Pigpen‘s “Chinatown Shuffle,” “The Stranger
(Two
Souls In Communion)” and “Mr. Charlie.” (Sadly, this was Pigpen’s final tour.) All those future classics were
interspersed with songs from the aforementioned “hit” albums—such as “Uncle John’s Band,” “Casey Jones,” “Sugar
Magnolia,” “Bertha,” and “Not Fade Away”—and then were topped off by loads of big jamming numbers—the Europe
’72 tour produced spectacular versions of “Dark Star,” “The Other One,” “Playing in the Band,” “Truckin’,” “China Cat
Sunflower” > “I Know You Rider,” “Good Lovin’,” “Lovelight,” and even the early Pig chestnut “Caution.”
GRATEFUL DEAD EUROPE 1972 TOUR DATES
All shows included in their entirety
April 7 Wembley Empire Pool, Wembley
April 8 Wembley Empire Pool, Wembley
April 11 Newcastle City Hall, Newcastle
April 14 Tivolis Koncertsal, Copenhagen
April 16 Aarhus University, Aarhus
April 17 Tivolis Koncertsal, Copenhagen
April 21 Beat Club, Bremen
April 24 Rheinhalle, Dusseldorf
April 26 Jahrhundert Halle, Frankfurt
April 29 Musikhalle, Hamburg
May 3 Olympia Theatre, Paris
May 4 Olympia Theatre, Paris
May 7 Bickershaw Festival, Wigan
May 10 Concertgebouw, Amsterdam
May 11 Rotterdam Civic Hall, Rotterdam
May 13 Lille Fairgrounds, Lille
May 16 Theatre Hall, Luxembourg
May 18 Kongressaal – Deutsches Museum, Munich
May 23 Strand Lyceum, London
May 24 Strand Lyceum, London
May 25 Strand Lyceum, London
May 26 Strand Lyceum, London
Mark Oliver Everett
Earthless
Caribou