does every grateful dead concert has drums > space

While the Grateful Dead assembled a massive array of percussion instruments for their “Drums” exploration, this would only grow as technology improved. Watch Hart and Kreutzmann’s performance of their “Drums” instrumental from the Dead’s Halloween 1980 concert at Radio City Music Hall below. Hart and Kreutzmann would essentially become an eight-limbed music machine, transfixed with their free-form improvisation as The Rhythm Devils. Though the band worked drum solos into some of their songs, notably “The Other One”, it wasn’t until the late ’70s and early ’80s when “Drums/Space” became a regular fixture during Grateful Dead shows.

Related: Mickey Hart Discusses Healing Nature Of Music On PBS ‘NewsHour’

Hart was a musicologist and world music connoisseur, and added psychedelically appropriate exotic elements to the band’s sound, from eastern rhythm patterns and tunings to delicately textured percussion to droning, tribal-style vamps and beyond. The addition of Hart to the lineup enabled the Dead to push their improvisation into deeper territories, with every note amplified by the dual percussive combination and Hart’s love of Eastern time signatures.

In their earliest days, the Grateful Dead was a one-drummer band, as Bill Kreutzmann held things down behind the kit from 1965 until 1967.

Today marks the 79th birthday of famed Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart.

Does every grateful dead concert has drums > space