In January the band gathers at Bob Weir's home studio and begins to make new, unplanned music. Over the next couple of months, songs begin to evolve and gel. Their private sojourn is broken on March 23rd, when they play for a concert to benefit students at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco. In a classic Dead moment, they offer 50,000 people (and a live radio audience) 45 minutes of atonal weirdness called 'Blues for Allah.' After about four months of creative exploration, the Dead's record company descends on them and demands they make a record ' like next week. Blues for Allah is released on September 1st, preceded by a live show at the tiny Great American Music Hall (later to be a vault release). The band also plays together, unbilled, at a benefit for cartoonist Bob Fried's family in June, and again with the Jefferson Starship in Golden Gate Park in September.
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