The Grateful Dead sing the National Anthem at a '93 Giants game

Check out this lovely rendition of the National Anthem by Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, and Vince Welnick before a 1993 San Francisco Giants game at Candlestick Park.

via Erik Malinowski's Twitter

I'm a contributing editor here at Boing Boing. I also have a blog (TokyoMango), a book (Urawaza), and I freelance for Wired, Make, the NY Times Magazine, PRI's Studio360, etc. I'm @tokyomango on Twitter.

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VoiceUXGuy

Sigh. Thank you!
jphilby

Man. I’d drop everything I’m doing to hear that live.
- Anonymous
  
  dude, I’d drop some acid
Jesse M.

Speaking of The Grateful Dead covering the classics, I always liked their version of the Twilight Zone intro…
David Carroll

I am sorry but they sang all the right notes, in the right order and remembered the words. All in 90 seconds. That’s not how it’s done these days!

Jessica Simpson illustrates:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFDNPtmr0rk
(Not Safe For Work,Home,Play,Children or Adults)
(Safe for Noriega SWAT teams and Hellen Keller)
- chgoliz
  
  That Jessica Simpson video was greatly improved by the use of the vuvuzela button: I could barely hear a note.
twinangel

Being a Deadhead, I’ve read a lot of books about them… one book mentioned this event (if anyone knows the citation, it would save me flipping through books to find it), the gist was, Jerry Garcia agreed to sing the National Anthem, but he didn’t want to rehearse it. His attitude was “we all know this song, why bother practicing it?” I think they eventually dragged him to some rehearsals to get the harmonies down.
S2

Man, they made us wait ’til “the rockets’ red glare” before serving up a fat helping of that signature Dead harmony; I was starting to jones out pretty bad….
MannyMayor

BoingBoing, I really love you. Thanks for this.
Anonymous

RIP Vince!

To quote Bobby Weir: “The New York Yankees…the best team money can buy.”
bshaurette

Aw, that brings tears to my eyes. I still miss Jerry.
Anonymous

Well, they never wrote anti-war songs. They were filthy rich. I’m not surprised by the jingoism.
- Phikus
  
  Anon@~17, querent@~19: Wow. Whatever happened to not speaking ill of the Dead?
  
  Obvious troll is obvious. Anybody who knows anything about the Dead knows they put huge amounts of money into humanitarian causes.
  
  What we’re thinking about is a peaceful planet. We’re not thinking about anything else. We’re not thinking about any kind of power. We’re not thinking about any kind of struggles. We’re not thinking about revolution or war or any of that. That’s not what we want. Nobody wants to get hurt. Nobody wants to hurt anybody. We would all like to be able to live an uncluttered life. A simple life, a good life. And think about moving the whole human race ahead a step, or a few steps.
  
  -Jerry Garcia
akamarkman

Anyone else see Bob at LeLacheur Park last week and feeling the same weird vibe?
kib

Wow… He looked great in this video, but Jerry died only about a year and a half later.
braininavat

Ah yes, the good old days, when singers could actually SING!
Anonymous

Wow, they remembered all the words!
Anonymous

I still think Marvin Gaye did it better:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=985241
- midtempo
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRvVzaQ6i8A
Agies

Something something video game reference.
jrtom

I’ve sung several different arrangements of the Star Spangled Banner (including at least one vocal jazz arrangement). That was a good one.
Anonymous

As a non-American, I would like to compliment the folks who let this happen. Found myself singing along and getting teary-eyed!

(Who knew?!)

Now if you can stop getting all rat’s ass on the rest of the world, I might sleep better at night.
- querent
  
  word
bbbaldie

And long enough back that we weren’t forced to look at barry bonds’ steroid-swollen features. Nice.
bbbaldie

Oops, I correct myself. That was his first year cheating for the Giants.
Anonymous

No one else could harmonize off-key so well.
Anonymous

What was important about this is that it almost didn’t happen. The Giants’ previous owner had effectively sold the club to someone who was going to move it to Florida, but the current ownership stepped in and bought it, brought Barry Bonds to the team, and eventually got a new stadium built, without public money. A truly great moment. As for the knocks on Barry, he wasn’t using at this time, and if it hadn’t been for all the clamor over the Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, who later proved to be users, he may well not have started.
Anonymous

I am very impressed. Great harmonies. The most beautiful sounding version of the anthem I’ve heard in a long while.Thanks for sharing.
ill lich

They took the song back to its barbershop roots.
bellhalla

And in case anybody cares, that was the Giants’ 1993 home opener, played on April 12 in front of their largest home crowd of the year. The Giants beat the Marlins, 4-3 in 11 innings.
imag

That was a Wonderful Thing.
WaylonWillie

that was a pitch-pipe he was tooting on at the beginning….right?
Phikus

It’s the freakin’ National Anthem people! Lighten up.