Grateful Dead: Dead Ahead
Dead Ahead is a concert video by the Grateful Dead. It was recorded at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on October 30 and October 31, 1980, and released in 1981. An expanded version was released in 2005. In contrast to other Dead concert videos, "Dead Ahead" contains acoustic as well as electric song performances. Acoustic and electric tour of 1980. In September and October 1980, the Grateful Dead did a concert tour of shows with three sets each, one acoustic set followed by two electric sets. The acoustic sets were the first the  band had performed since the early '70s aside from a few rare one-off acoustic sets in special circumstances. The tour comprised 15 shows at The Warfield in San Francisco, 2 shows at the Saenger Theatre in New Orleans, and 8 shows at Radio City Music Hall in New York. The following year, songs from the tour were released as two live albums, the all-acoustic "Reckoning" and the all-electric "Dead Set". The concert video. "Dead Ahead" contains songs from the last two New York concerts, October 30 and October 31, 1980. Although the video was compiled from multiple  performances, and is shorter than one of the three-set concerts, it follows the general format of one of the shows, starting with some acoustic material and proceeding to a longer section of amplified music, including a somewhat edited "Drums" and "Space". The video also includes several sketches by the comedy team of Al Franken and Tom Davis. These are from the final night of the tour, October 31, which was hosted by Franken and Davis, and broadcast on radio and on closed circuit TV. Different versions of "Dead Ahead". "Dead Ahead" was released on VHS video tape and on  laserdisc in 1981. Remastered versions of the video tape and laserdisc were issued in 1995, with a running time of 1 hour 54 minutes. In November 2005, an expanded edition of "Dead Ahead" was released on DVD, with a running time of 2 hours 44 minutes. Track listing. Expanded edition bonus tracks. Notes on the recording dates: