The Internet Archive’s mission is “universal access to all knowledge.” It’s possibly best known as the home to the Wayback Machine, an essential digital library of more than 602 billion saved web pages. The Dead database, small by comparison, tallies about 15,644 concerts, including multiple versions of the same shows: 4,714 recorded straight from the soundboard, 6,308 taped by the audience, 1,026 from the year 1990, 660 from 1980, 322 from 1971, 114 from 1968, and two from 1965. All of the music here is streamable. Much is forgettable. Hours and hours, days and days, are sublime. But nothing moves me like the 10,000 or so comments left by listeners.
Dreamy, detailed, and sometimes deranged sentences run on like the riffs they describe. These posts are tender, nostalgic, and frequently celestial. Hipness, a linchpin of music writing, is nowhere in sight. Authority and expertise disappear when each opinion is about as right as the one above. It’s practically the most mellow body of writing I’ve ever found. And nowhere have I seen better usernames: to-the-point (Bonk), catchy (Bobstopper), mellifluous (Shwoogie74), plausible (Dave Davis), and paranoid (NixonWantedMeDead).
This is a serene place, but not a boring one. Consider the reactions to a fan shouting “woo-woo!” throughout “Casey Jones” at the Hollywood Palladium in 1971. In 2012: “Whoever is yelling along with the song is the man.” In 2006: “The fuckhead I’ve wanted to strangle for 30 years.” That July: “At least he is doing it in time to the music, in places.” Back in 2005: “Where was the taper situated, inside King Kong’s mouth? Under Jack Nicholson’s Cadillac Seville in his Mulholland garage? I’ve had a beer or two.” Last year: “I don’t even mind the woo-woo guy.”
Much of the thrill comes from memories that twirl and glide in unexpected directions. Reading the funny and associative anecdotes feels less like consulting polished music criticism than eavesdropping on stoned strangers. When Jjg4762 first heard a forty-three-minute, December 1973 version of “Dark Star” in a friend’s family’s basement, they were left “in total peace, because his mom was the first known alcoholic to us. She would be upstairs drinking away,” he wrote. “Oh, the good old days of youth.”