Without a Net

Background

The Grateful Dead's albums had frustrated critics and fans alike for neither approaching nor accurately representing the band's live concert sound and experience - to the point that band-approved, fan-made tapes were preferred to official releases. The band's organization had poured profits into sound reinforcement and cutting-edge technology for their concert performances and were likewise frustrated by the seeming shortfall in capturing their sound on album.

With the advent of digital technology, Without a Net was the band's first contemporary live project in nine years, and featured selections from then-recent tours in an attempt to allow the home listener a closer facsimile of the band's engulfing sound system. Touting the advancement in production clarity, the accompanying shrink wrap sticker proclaimed: "The world's grandest, largest, best live recording."

The resulting album achieved gold-status sales within weeks of its release - the first live album by the band to do so. A series of live releases followed, beginning with a complete concert performance in its entirety. The release of archival live performances continued after the 1995 dissolution of the band and is ongoing.

Content and packaging

The album title uses the idiom metaphorically, alluding to the band's disinclination for prepared set lists. They preferred to just play and let the song choice evolve by sense for each performance, pulling from a repertoire of over 100 then-common songs. In keeping with that notion, the packaging used a circus theme, with a "Big Top Limited Edition" also-available, featuring clowns and related artwork. The album's dedication to Clifton Hanger is a reference to keyboardist Brent Mydland, who used the alias for hotel registration. Mydland died before the album's release.

The album is an attempt to compile some of the best performances from then-recent tours and present them as a prototypical Grateful Dead concert, as they sounded at that time. However, Mydland's death and the subsequent addition of Vince Welnick and Bruce Hornsby had changed the band's live sound by the time the album was available. Seventeen songs were chosen from two of the most recent tours and sequenced to represent typical set placement (though the traditional "Drums" solo and "Space" improvisation are absent, and the final "encore" track is given an early fade out).

Other live albums from the same time span (including additional material from the same concerts) have since been released. Those titles are: Dozin' at the Knick, Postcards of the Hanging, Terrapin Station (Limited Edition), So Many Roads (1965–1995), Garcia Plays Dylan, Spring 1990, Formerly the Warlocks, Weir Here, Spring 1990 (The Other One), 30 Trips Around the Sun and Nightfall of Diamonds.

Track listing

Disc one

1. "Feel Like a Stranger" (Barlow, Weir) – 7:32
2. "Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo" (Hunter, Garcia) – 8:00
3. "Walkin' Blues" (Johnson, arr. Weir) – 5:44
4. "Althea" (Hunter, Garcia) – 6:55
5. "Cassidy" (Barlow, Weir) – 6:36
6. "Bird Song" (Hunter, Garcia) – 12:57
7. "Let It Grow" (Barlow, Weir) – 11:55

Disc two

8. "China Cat Sunflower"/"I Know You Rider" (Hunter, Garcia/trad., arr. Grateful Dead) – 10:24
9. "Looks Like Rain" (Barlow, Weir) – 8:04
10. "Eyes of the World" (Hunter, Garcia) – 16:14
11. "Victim or the Crime" (Graham, Weir) – 8:04
12. "Help on the Way/Slipknot!/Franklin's Tower" (Hunter, Garcia/Grateful Dead/Hunter, Garcia, Kreutzman) – 19:07
13. "One More Saturday Night" (Weir) – 4:51
14. "Dear Mr. Fantasy" (Capaldi, Winwood, Wood) – 5:44

Notes

Personnel

Additional musician

Recording dates

Charts

Album — Billboard