Now Available: Grateful Dead, READY OR NOT

This past Halloween, BUILT TO LAST, The Grateful Dead’s final studio album, celebrated its 30th anniversary, and for those whose only frame of reference of the band was their recorded material, it might as well as been the last material ever written by the band. As it happens, however, the band continued to write songs, even going so far as to add several of them to their live sets. They never managed to complete them in an actual recording studio, however, so if you didn’t see them live, then they would’ve been off your radar.

As of this past Friday, all of that changed.

That’s because Rhino released READY OR NOT, a collection curated by the band’s archivist, David Lemieux, which features nine previously-unreleased live versions of new songs debuted by the band during their live performances of 1992 and 1993.  The intent of the track listing for READY OR NOT is to try and create a look into the next official studio album that never was, so consider an alternate-universe Grateful Dead LP, if you will.

READY OR NOT is being released digitally, on CD, and on a 180-gram 2-LP set limited to 10,000 copies, but Dead.net – as ever – is offering up an even more limited-edition version, one which offers one LP on red vinyl and the other LP on blue vinyl. There’ll only be 2,000 copies of that one, so you shouldn’t waste any more time before ordering a copy, which you can easily do by clicking on this link right here.

Here’s the full track listing:
 
READY OR NOT

CD Track Listing
1.    “Liberty” – Madison Square Garden, New York, NY (10/14/94)
2.    “Eternity” – The Pyramid, Memphis, TN (4/2/95)
3.    “Lazy River Road” – Dean Smith Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC (3/25/93)
4.    “Samba In The Rain” – The Omni, Atlanta, GA (3/30/95)
5.    “So Many Roads” – Star Lake Amphitheatre, Burgettstown, PA (6/23/92)
6.    “Way To Go Home” – Deer Creek Music Center, Noblesville, IN (6/28/92)
7.    “Corrina” – Madison Square Garden, New York, NY (10/14/94)
8.    “Easy Answers” – Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA (9/13/93)
9.    “Days Between” – Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, Oakland, CA (12/11/94)

2-LP Track Listing

Side A
1.    “Liberty”
2.    “Eternity”

Side B
1.    “Lazy River Road”
2.    “Samba In The Rain”
3.    “So Many Roads”

Side C
1.    “Way To Go Home”
2.    “Corrina”

Side D
1.    “Easy Answers”
2.    “Days Between”