whos better grateful dead or rush???

[Ron2112]

I don't even need one hand to count the Dead songs I like. Garcia was a so-so guitarist, and the rest of the band was shite.

 

Spoken as someone who apparently knows NOTHING about the guitar or music in general.

 

Regardless of whether you like the GD's music, philosophy, whatever, Garcia is an iconic guitar player for a reason. The man was a living, breathing books of guitar scales and modes, and the way he can slip into such modal solos from one version of a song to the next is stunning. It demonstrates a knowledge of the fretboard that few, if any, other gutarists have achieved.

 

As for the GD in general, you can like their songs or not (I happen to love a great deal of it), their approach to their business model with regards to how they interact with their fanbase was revolutionary.

 

THey set up a ticketing system that ensured fair access to good seats for all their fans -- something that most modern bands STILL haven't mastered.

 

They made each concert a rare and unique event by changing their set list every single night.

 

By allowing taping and free trading of their shows, they created a demand for official product -- to include concert seats -- which was nearly unprecedented.

 

There's a reason why year-to-year when Jerry was still alive that the GD were consistently the highest-grossing live act in the world. The only band who could touch them money-wise was Pink Floyd, in 1994.

[tangy]

I don't even need one hand to count the Dead songs I like. Garcia was a so-so guitarist, and the rest of the band was shite.

 

Spoken as someone who apparently knows NOTHING about the guitar or music in general.

 

Regardless of whether you like the GD's music, philosophy, whatever, Garcia is an iconic guitar player for a reason. The man was a living, breathing books of guitar scales and modes, and the way he can slip into such modal solos from one version of a song to the next is stunning. It demonstrates a knowledge of the fretboard that few, if any, other gutarists have achieved.

 

As for the GD in general, you can like their songs or not (I happen to love a great deal of it), their approach to their business model with regards to how they interact with their fanbase was revolutionary.

 

THey set up a ticketing system that ensured fair access to good seats for all their fans -- something that most modern bands STILL haven't mastered.

 

They made each concert a rare and unique event by changing their set list every single night.

 

By allowing taping and free trading of their shows, they created a demand for official product -- to include concert seats -- which was nearly unprecedented.

 

There's a reason why year-to-year when Jerry was still alive that the GD were consistently the highest-grossing live act in the world. The only band who could touch them money-wise was Pink Floyd, in 1994.

 

Great post. Fantastic players who were about having a great time

 

[HalfwayToGone]

I'll go ahead and disagree. Knowing a lot of scales means nothing if all you do with it is noodle around for a half-hour at a time. The reason the dead had such a huge following is because 90% or more of their fans were obliterated on acid or toward the end, ecstasy. I tried very hard to give them a chance, and saw them 4 times while Garcia was still alive. I've had a "thing" for plenty of other guitarists who noodle, but Jerry's noodles bored me to no end every single time--literally, I'd be looking around trying to get a hit off someone's joint and waiting for it to be over. When they actually played songs and sang, they were a decent live band, but the only part of the show that even slightly interested me was the big drum jam, and that's only because I'm a drummer. The one other thing you could say about the bands is that Rush came from the entirely opposite approach to performance--extremely rehearsed and pretty consistent, which lends itself to putting a lot more mental effort into really nailing and nuancing each performance, as opposed to just flying by the seat of their pants and crashing on a regular basis. I'm sure I remember tons of times my friends commenting about dead shows, saying things like, "oh, Jerry must've gotten some really crappy drugs that night." Never had to worry about that at a Rush show--their bad nights were still pretty good. On the other hand, for people who have bootleg fetishes, dead tapes from one show to the next are much more unique, while rush boots from any one tour are probably similar other than sound quality and how perfectly or not they played on a given night.