50 years ago on January 8, a Grateful Dead fan recorded their show at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco. Since then, over 2,000 live recordings have been made by fans, the band, sound engineers and just about anyone else who could get close enough with a microphone to capture the magic of the epic band.

I owned (and still own) some of those recordings. And I still play them. On a cassette player. Some of them are pretty high quality. Others are "bootlegs", recorded from the audience and full of random snippets of conversations, loud cheering and crowd participation in the singing.  All of them are entertaining, if for different reasons.

Since it's the 50-year anniversary, I decided to dig out all my "Live Dead" tapes and have a listening party with my fellow Deadheads tonight. Everyone's a little older now. You couldn't call any of us  "long hairs" anymore! But most of us still own our old tie-dyed tees. And ALL of us are still dedicated to the Dead.