Dick’s Picks was a success. It is inarguable.

There are the pristine (mostly) versions of legendary shows, the stuff you listen to over and over after making it halfway through yet another ’89 that was infuriatingly similar to the last ’89 show you didn’t really see the point to. Harpur College, Fillmore East, the He’s Gone for Bobby Sands. (When Bobby was told about Bobby Sands, he responded, “No, he doesn’t,” and then Billy was all over him.

Listen to 16, 11/8/69 the familiar minor riff in 10 emerges from nowhere and retreats to an alternate dimension where the Mind Left Body theme got turned into a song and the Playin’ riff just showed up in Dark Stars now and again. You would know it was an alternate reality because Garcia would have a goatee on top of his beard.

AND THEN they start playing Uncle John’s, but just the music because at this point it’s just a riff and then your face melts and you pick it up except it fell on the carpet and you were eating fried chicken so…ahh, shit there’s face all over the–

We interrupt the nonsense to just say: hey, the guy’s working himself through some shit right now. Things are weird at the house, okay? You’ve been there.

–okay, okay, one more CrunchBerry–

Yeah, he disgusts us, too. You’re here of your own free will. No one’s forcing you to be here EXCEPT FOR ME WHO IS HOLDING GUN UP TO INTERNET!

You done?

Yes.

Perhaps the ultimate compliment one can give of this show is that it, briefly and entirely against my own preference, made me dance just a little bit. Sadly, sadly, but with hope? Maybe. They made me do something I didn’t want to do. The Grateful Dead are time-travelling CIA operatives.