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Digital Exhibits

A Touch of Greymarket: Capitalism at the Grateful Dead Show

The typical Grateful Dead show was a tale of two economies.

On one side of things is the massive corporate entertainment machinery needed to put on multi-night concerts for tens of thousands of people, with large stage crews, concert promoters, sports arena venues, record labels, radio, official merchandise and of course the band themselves.

On the other side of the venue walls was the parking lot scene: the social, cultural and economic hub of the legions of Deadheads who followed the band from concert to concert.

A Touch Of Greymarket: Capitalism at the Grateful Dead Show is a 360 degree tour of the complicated economic world of live concerts, both in and around the concert itself. It gives online viewers (and listeners) another way to explore the exhibition "Put Your Gold Money Where Your Love, Baby": Counterculture, Capitalism, and the Grateful Dead, curated by Jessica Pigza, Alix Norton and Gabriel Saloman Mindel, and on view at Dead Central from June 2018 - May 2019.

Click on icons to discover photos, live recordings, and letters from Deadheads and bandmembers alike, all housed within the Grateful Dead Archive at UCSC McHenry Library's Special Collections.

Credits

Exhibit created by Gabriel Saloman Mindel, 2017-2018 Fellow of the Center for Archival Research and Training (CART)