Rather than send in torch-waving ushers to evict transgressing concertgoers, the band would encourage its Deadhead fans in acts of gonzo audio piracy.
Though some aficionados point to studio works such as 1970's American Beauty as marking the Dead's zenith, most agree it was only in live performance that the granddaddy of all jam bands truly thrived.
Its first official in-concert release was a sprawling four-sider, a seven-track document of what it was to be a rock act unbound by limits of style or time.
Live/Dead, released at the tail end of 1969, draws on three concerts from earlier that year.
Four years on from the first of many house-band appearances at Ken Kesey's psychedelic Acid Test parties, the Dead's transition from jug band to hippie fusion act is complete, with elements of Americana, jazz, folk and space rock woven together in a fashion that mirrors the consciousness-expanding ethos of the times.
In an act that betrays the bands joy at being unfettered by standard commercial considerations, the entire opening side of the double album is dedicated to one song.
Dark Star, which had been released as a sub-three-minute single in 1968, meanders into existence before launching into extended, intertwining improvisations led by Jerry Garcia's guitar. Twenty-three minutes later, it recedes gently into nothingness.
St Stephen's bluesy exuberance segues into the challenging time signatures of The Eleven, propelled along by the twin percussion of Mickey Hart and Bill Kruetzmann.
Turn On Your Love Light is another to use blues as a takeoff point for extended jamming, this time twisting the standard first made famous by Bobby Bland.
Death Don't Have No Mercy is subdued by comparison.
When the aptly-named Feedback resolves with three-part a cappella dirge We Bid You Goodnight, the tantalising taster of the Dead's weird and wonderful essence is brought to a fitting close.
- Jeff Harford
