Pre-Order – Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of Grateful Dead

It takes a seriously momentous concert event for folks to start getting psyched about pre-ordering a copy of the live audio document of a show before it's even taken place, but what other reaction would you expect for Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of Grateful Dead? It's the so-called “core four” original members of the band - Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh, and Bob Weir - getting back together for a three-night event on July 3, 4, and 5 that's set to be their final live performance together. Better yet, Trey Anastasio (guitar), Jeff Chimenti (keyboards), and Bruce Hornsby (piano) will be joining in the fun, so you know the music is going to be out of this world.

The album version of Fare Thee Well won't be available until November 20, but since we know you're already chomping at the bit to find out about it, let's get right to it, shall we?

First of all, if you want complete audio and video for all three shows, then you've got to go to Dead.net, because…well, it's because those are the rules, and they get to make the rules themselves because they're the Dead, dammit, and that's just the way it goes. But let's get real: the Dead fans are going to be hitting up the Dead's official website the second this material becomes available, anyway, so it's really not going to bother most folks very much.

That said, there'll be two versions exclusive to Dead.net: one 12-CD/7-Blu-ray and the other 12-CD/7-DVD, each limited to 20,000 individually numbered copies and featuring an exclusive bonus disc containing a behind-the-scenes look captured by Justin Kreutzmann, footage from the Grateful Dead ticketing office documenting the 350,000 plus tickets requests received for the shows, vignettes from the parking lot scene at Soldier Field and backstage material from the shows themselves.

If you're looking for the less extravagant retail versions, though, here are the various options available to you:

4-CD/2-Blu-ray Version - Full audio and high-definition video from final show (July 5) on CD
and Blu-ray. 4-CD/2-DVD Version - Full audio and video from final show (July 5) on CD and DVD. 2-Blu-ray Version - Full high-definition video from final show (July 5) on Blu-ray. 2-DVD Version - Full video from final show (July 5) on DVD. 2-CD "Best Of" Version - Audio highlights from all three shows. Digital Download - Audio and video from the final show (July 5) will be available as well as
audio from the "Best Of" version.

To order any of these versions, you can head over to Dead.net right now, so…what are you waiting for?!?