grateful dead european tour 1972

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The Europe ’72 tour represented the most ambitious undertaking in the Dead’s career to date. While they had played Europe before—two dates in England in 1970 and one in France in 1971—the 22 shows they performed over the course of April and May 1972 represented their most extensive foreign tour. Indeed, their only other foreign tours had been to Canada, once for an eight-date engagement with Jefferson Airplane in summer 1967, and the commercially ill-fated but hugely entertaining four-date Trans-Continental Pop Festival tour in 1970, immortalized in the Hunter-Garcia song “Might As Well” and ultimately in the 2004 documentary Festival Express .

Nicholas Meriwether

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Grateful Dead’s ‘Europe 72’ Turns 50: How It Changed Their Path (And Rock)

The lightning-in-a-bottle recording fueled a musical cult that has spanned half a century… and who knows where it'll go from here.

By William Goodman

William Goodman

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Live . A note. A melody. A passing riff. It’s fleeting, one-of-a-kind artistry. Few know this better than Deadheads.

Dead & Company Announce Final Tour: See the Full List of Dates

In the 160-odd years since audio was first recorded, many a musical legend has attempted to bottle the elusive magic of their live performances. Some successfully. Others less so. But few rock bands have produced anything as influential as Europe ‘72 , the Grateful Dead’s triple live album, chronicling their wild ride through The Continent in April and May that year. Released 50 years ago on Nov. 5, 1972, it remains one of the most commercially successful albums by the Dead. It’s also perhaps their one release most responsible for The Live Cult of the Dead – the cultural movement that today is still very much alive and well. It’s the gateway drug for prospective Deadheads. While bootleg tape-traders can argue over which recording of what show during which era is the band’s best, Europe ’72 is their best-known and most widely acclaimed.

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In ’71, they followed up with a self-titled live album, lovingly known as Skull & Roses for its iconic cover art, which introduced tracks like “Bertha,” “Wharf Rat” and “Playing in the Band.” Then, in early ’72, Garcia dropped his eponymous debut solo album, shortly followed by Weir’s solo release, Ace . It all helped add to the Dead’s live repertoire.

A few more lineup changes occurred during this time: Hart began a three-year absence in ‘71, leaving Kreutzmann as the Dead’s sole drummer. Keyboardist Keith Godchaux joined in September ’71 to help prop up the 26-year-old Pigpen, who was by then in and out of the hospital with health problems. And finally, Godchaux’s wife Donna, a onetime session singer for Elvis Presley, joined as a backing vocalist. The stage was now set for Europe ’72.

“Magical stuff was happening in ’72,” longtime crew member/manager Steve Parish said in Amazon’s four-hour documentary A Long Strange Trip . “Stuff that to this day, I can’t explain. They we repushing us into the light, and the light was bright.”

On the Dead’s first extended European tour, the group played a total of 22 shows (most of them clocking in north of three hours) starting and concluding in London, and hitting Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Paris, Amsterdam, Munich and others in between. It was a 50-person traveling circus of family members, wives, girlfriends, friends, kids, roadies, dealers and hanger-ons. Live, the band leaned into the kaleidoscopic, yet dusty, psych-Americana sound of Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty with slithering guitar solos and rollicking rhythms. Each night’s full set was recorded with a future release in mind—the band was in debt to their label and the tour needed to be profitable. They jammed into the night aided by a bottle of distilled LSD smuggled across the Atlantic on the plane.

Extended, energetic improvisations abound, and post-tour overdubs eliminated most of the crowd noise (some new vocal takes were added, too). The tour de force is Garcia’s messianic closer, “Morning Dew,” recorded at the last show of the tour in London. It’s a Canadian folk tune, recounting a conversation between the last man and woman alive on earth following a nuclear apocalypse, but heavily interpreted by the Dead and Garcia: “Walk me out in the morning dew my honey,” he sings, his guitar gently reassuring, Pigpen’s organ lines floating beneath. “I’ll walk you out in the morning dew my honey. I guess it doesn’t really matter anyway.” Garcia reportedly played the version on the live album with his back to the crowd, tears running down his face.

Europe ‘72 was one of the first triple-record rock albums to be certified gold, and has since been certified double platinum. The Dead’s best-selling live album also marked a coda: the group’s final recording with Pigpen, who died the following year.

In 2011, all recordings from the tour were released as Europe ’72: The Complete Recordings —across 73 CDs.

And the legend roles on. After Garcia’s death, in 1995, the band’s various members carried the torch, performing their classics in too many incarnations to mention. In 2015, members of the Dead unexpectedly partnered with John Mayer for a new band, Dead & Co. Yes, “Your Body Is a Wonderland,” Rolex-collecting, Jessica Simpson-dating Hollywood pop-blues playboy John Mayer. At first, it was a very curious partnership. Many Deadheads were livid. Now, in hindsight, it feels like destiny. The band’s live shows over the past seven years have drawn millions and been positively embraced by Deadheads. Meanwhile, the band’s quarterly archival live release series, Dave’s Picks, have delivered their highest chart placements in recent years. And in summer 2023, the Dead & Co. will wrap up their run with a series of shows across North America. It’s one of the hottest tickets on earth.

“Being alive, means continuing to change,” Jerry Garcia said in A Long Strange Trip . And The Dead never die.

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Grateful Dead tour Europe for the first time – a classic feature from the vaults

"The trouble with a lot of kids who come to our concerts is that they can't see beyond the drugs. They get so ripped that the music doesn't really matter" – Pigpen

For six years the legend of the acid-test band has lingered. The Dead , the band to take drugs to. And, true to form, the British Dead freaks all but filled the great cavern of Wembley Pool, with the joints a-going and the whisky passing round, and, with the billboard for the National Country Music Festival still on the front of the building and associations of recent T.Rextasy strong in mind, the concert they saw was probably a unique event.

"Just folks, that's all we can relate to. The songs we play are our history. The American West" – Pigpen

"Until some new divine inspiration, some flash; comes that is all we can do, play our music and seek a oneness with the people who are listening" – Bob Weir

And that was exactly what they did: they played music for almost three hours, standing, nodding in time, without theatre or histrionics, almost waist-deep in monitor speakers. A group of men doing the job that they really enjoy, and ranging across a spectrum of music that anyone in the audience must have grown up with; with Pigpen standing quietly putting 'Big Boss Man' through' a version both loyal to – and at the same time a long way from – either Jimmy Reed or the gold-jacket boys who borrowed it from him.

"Three of us have given up drugs. It became worrying – we were burning out our brain cells and so were the people in the audience, strung-out thirteen year olds outside the Fillmore East " – Bob Weir

Despite that, the pipe went round in the hotel room and the big cigarettes were produced on stage, and the triumphal first half ending with Casey Jones was treated as an anthem rather than a warning, repeating the chorus over and over with Joe's Lights projecting the lyrics on to the back stage screen, and lacking only a bouncing spot to give it the full seaside-concert party, pier pavilion atmosphere.

"The main thing is getting off behind the music" – Pigpen

It is hard to talk about a band that one moment is being led by Garcia to sounds that are a part of pink padded tunnels that spiral down through the back byways of consciousness, and, moments later, follows Bob Weir, breaking into the John Wayne jukebox reality of Marty Robbins' El Paso – "One day a wild young cowboy came in, wild as wild Texas wind."

You suddenly get a flash on shared history: as Bob Weir leads on Down the Line, you know that at fifteen he stood in front of a mirror and tried to look like Elvis, the same as the rest of you did, or listening to Garcia you see a kid who practiced copying the Mid-West nasal whine of the young Bob Dylan. The shared flash a oneness through their music that is instantly earthy and spiritually high.

"California is at one time, paradise and a battleground" – Phil Lesh

The sadness of seeing the Dead for the first time is that the logistics of bringing them to England prevented the Wembley audience from sharing totally the seven-year evolution that produced the music they were hearing, as the band grinned happily as a pocket of freaks lit sparklers, or, between songs, asked anyone who couldn't hear well to shout "NO". The charisma is still there, so evident in the gang of freeloaders trying to get a piece of Grateful Dead energy at the after-show reception.

It would have been nice to have grown up with the acid-test band, particularly as there is the sneaking suspicion that if the first London acid had been dropped watching them rather than cerebrally isolating the Pink Floyd, we might be a stronger community.

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Grateful Dead Reach Back to Legendary 1972 Tour for Massive Box Set

By David Fricke

David Fricke

O n April 1st, 1972 , the Grateful Dead arrived in Britain for the opening dates of their first European tour. The timing was perfect — “the feast of fools,” guitarist Bob Weir says, laughing. “There was a challenge for us, playing for people not familiar with what we were up to. But we were ready for fresh ears.” More important, “We were hot.”

Recordings from that run, which included stops in Germany, France, Denmark and Holland, were issued as a three-LP set, Europe ’72 (with extensive vocal overdubs). But even that length barely captured the legendary heft of the Dead’s performances: the wealth of new material and the intrepid jamming that often sent “Dark Star” and “The Other One” well past the half-hour mark.

This article appears in the February 3, 2011 issue of Rolling Stone. The issue is available now on newsstands and will appear in the online archive January 21.

In the fall, the tour will be released by Rhino as a limited-edition beast: 22 shows on more than 60 CDs. The lavish set, available by pre-order from the Dead’s website, will cost over $400 and is unprecedented even by their archive-box standards. “By the time we’re finished, we’ll have put two years into this,” says producer David Lemieux, who expects mixing and mastering to wrap by June. “If there was ever a tour that needed a complete release, it was Europe ’72. It’s one of the top three tours the Dead ever did, and there’s a pristine 16-track recording of every show. It’s the perfect storm.”

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“I remember that tour clearly,” says bassist Phil Lesh, noting that no one in the band had been to Europe before. “In Hamburg, we played in the hall where Brahms played. In Paris, I literally felt the spirits of Chopin and Debussy. I think that made us play better. I remember being on .” In Aarhus, Denmark, the Dead appeared in a college cafeteria, unfurling a spaced-dance sequence including “Truckin’,” “The Other One” and “Not Fade Away” that lasted more than an hour.

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“Someone would catch fire, and that would spread,” Weir says. “I’d catch a riff everyone coalesced around. Then someone else would come up with something that took us another way. It was a collective flash — time to move on.”

Online Exclusive interviews with Bob Weir and Phil Lesh about ‘Europe 72’

The Dead were in dramatic transition that spring, emboldened by the jazzy ambitions of new pianist Keith Godchaux. “It was amazing how tuned in he was to our music,” Lesh says. “In Paris, he played like a god.” The European tour was also the Dead’s last with ailing singer-organist Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, who died in 1973. “He didn’t have as much energy as before,” Weir says, “but he was trying his best to deal with it.” McKernan sang the funky new “Mr. Charlie,” one of his few originals, written with Robert Hunter, at every stop.

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Lemieux says other Dead tours deserve full release, such as the fall of ’73 and spring 1990: “It’s such a diverse band. You can do boxes from ’72 and ’89 back-to-back, and there’s nothing similar about them, except it’s Grateful Dead music.”

“It all boils down to ‘Is there a story there?'” says Weir. “If we can find an era like this, with a story line and development — and I have a feeling there is — there would be merit in doing this again.”

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The Grateful Dead Celebrate 50 Years of EUROPE '72

The Grateful Dead's first tour outside of North America was immortalized on Europe '72, a triple live album that distilled peak moments from the 22 shows the band played in six countries for thousands of Europeans. A triumph critically and commercially when it was released in November 1972, today the double-platinum album is an integral part of the Dead's live legacy and beloved by generations of fans. Appreciation for the extraordinary tour grew in 2011 when every show was released in the unprecedented, 73-CD boxed set, Europe '72: The Complete Recordings .

Today is the 50 th anniversary of the first show from the Dead’s European adventure. It took place on April 7, 1972, at Wembley Empire Pool in London. To mark the milestone, Rhino and Dead.net are announcing a series of upcoming releases and events connected to the celebrated tour.

LYCEUM 1972: THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS marks the Dead's largest vinyl boxed set of all time, a 24-LP collection presenting the final four shows from the tour at London's Lyceum Theatre in their entirety on 180-gram vinyl for the first time ($549.98). Limited to 4,000 copies, the set will be released on July 29 and is available now to pre-order exclusively from Dead.net for $549.98.

LYCEUM 1972: THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS comes in a colorful slipcase with new artwork by Brian Blomerth. The four shows are organized in individual clamshell boxes, each one features the cover art that Scott McDougall created for each concert in Europe '72: The Complete Recordings. The accompanying book includes a new in-depth look at the Lyceum shows by noted Dead scholar Nicholas Meriwether.

A newly remastered version of the original Europe '72 album will also be available on July 29. EUROPE '72 (50 th ANNIVERSARY EDITION) arrives in 2-CD ($24.98), 3-LP ($69.98, 180-gram), streaming, and digital download versions including Apple Lossless and FLAC 96/24. A special "Bozo Or Bolo" 3-LP version will see a special early release on June 3, exclusively on Dead.net. Limited to 5,000 copies and available for pre-order now, this special edition of the historic album is pressed on psychedelic rainbow vinyl, a visual callback to the original album’s iconic cover design by Alton Kelley and Stanley Mouse. Each LP features a 50/50 color split with alternating transparent and neon colors of a rainbow: LP1 is transparent red and neon orange; LP2 is transparent yellow and neon green; and LP3 is transparent indigo and neon violet. All of the new 50 th anniversary editions were mastered by Grammy® Award winning engineer David Glasser with newly restored audio by Plangent Processes.

Rounding out the list of anniversary releases is LYCEUM THEATRE: MAY 26, 1972. This 4-CD set ($39.98) from Rhino spotlights the epic last show of the Dead's European tour. Notably, it was also the group's penultimate performance with founding member, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, who died in March the following year. Despite his failing health, Pigpen electrified European audiences with his charismatic performances of "Chinatown Shuffle," "Good Lovin'" and (his latest song) "The Stranger (Two Souls In Communion)." The tour, and the show, represents a bittersweet capstone to his too-short career.

"Throughout the Grateful Dead's 30 years of touring, every year, and every tour, had exceptional moments and monumental shows. Only a few tours, though, can be said to have an exceptional night of music at every single show. Europe '72 is one of the tours that can objectively and definitively said to include A+ performances on every stop," says Grateful Dead legacy manager and archivist David Lemieux. " The Dead's momentum had been gaining steam during the past couple of years of non-stop touring, leading up to a peak in the Dead's performing career: the Europe '72 tour. From opening night on April 7 to the final show on May 26, the Grateful Dead made sure they were making fans for life, and the recordings don't lie. Every show was truly an event, and we're all so fortunate to be able to hear the tour's music 50 years later, sounding better than ever."

To jumpstart the 50 th anniversary of the Dead's 1972 European tour, "The Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast" returns today for a fifth season that promises to delve deeply into the historic '72 tour. The first two episodes are available now with new episodes continuing to drop every Thursday for the next eight weeks, allowing for listeners to take a real time retrospective of the tour as it happened 50 years ago. This season also features stories from fans who saw the band on the tour, and there's still time for people to submit their Europe '72 stories for later episodes at stories.dead.net.

Co-produced by singer-songwriter Rich Mahan and writer/DJ Jesse Jarnow (whose  Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America  will be released by Hachette Audio as an audiobook on April 12), the Deadcast mixes new interviews with musical dives, surprise turns, and deep archival research, including rare letters home from Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, who sadly passed away less than a year later. Guests include travelers from the band and family including tour architect Sam Cutler, Carolyn "Mountain Girl" Garcia, Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay, Steve Parish, and a range of tour attendees, such as Elvis Costello, who says seeing the Dead in 1972 at the Bickershaw Festival was "a revelation."

Tomorrow (April 8) will see the premiere of the livestream event “Dead Studies: The Wonders Of Dark Star” on the Grateful Dead’s Official YouTube channel. Host Dr. Graeme M. Boone, professor of musicology at The Ohio State University, will present his detailed analysis of the first “Dark Star” of the Europe ‘72 tour, from Wembley Empire Pool, 50 years to the day of the original performance. Boone’s commentary will be accompanied by a 30+ minute planetarium show synced to the song.

See and pre-order the complete Grateful Dead EUROPE '72 Collection here.

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Europe '72 Tour

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The Grateful Dead toured through Europe in April and May of 1972. It started on April 4, in London, England and ended in London on May 26. Shortly after the tour, Pigpen became to sick to continue playing with the Grateful Dead. Concerts during this period were often 3 or 4 hours long and set lists could have had more than 30 songs.

List of Europe '72 Shows