The magnificent Long Strange Trip captures the splendor and folly of the Grateful Dead

Some of the most surprisingly gripping passages in Dennis McNally’s 2001 book A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History Of The Grateful Dead have to do with amplifiers. The band’s longtime publicist spent decades with the Dead, and watched them shrug off major details of their business—like getting their songs just right in a recording studio or keeping track of their income—while practically tearing each other apart over the small stuff. In 1974, frontman Jerry Garcia and his mates poured money and man-hours into developing a sound system so loud and so clear that at outdoor concerts the music would sound pristine a half-mile away. They knew that the best way to experience the band was at a live show, surrounded by fellow pilgrims, grooving to every note of otherworldly improvisations. So that’s where they directed their resources: to positioning the speakers.
Any Deadheads out there who might be wavering about whether or not to watch Amir Bar-Lev’s nearly four-hour documentary, Long Strange Trip, should know that not only is McNally one of the interview subjects, but that the film also dedicates a good 10 to 15 minutes to that stack of amps, dubbed the Wall Of Sound. Bar-Lev also takes a long detour to cover the phenomenon of Dead bootlegs and to ask some famous fans—including Senator Al Franken—about their favorite tapes. There are sections of Long Strange Trip that discuss how Garcia’s bluegrass roots inspired the way he liked to interact with the band onstage and sections that deal with the decision to simplify the writing and recording process for the classic Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty albums, as well as a tearjerking anecdote about how the Europe ’72 recording of “Morning Dew” came to be. This movie doesn’t skimp on the arcana—not all of which will be common knowledge even to die-hards.