New Grateful Dead box set to feature previously unreleased concerts from 1978

A new box set dedicated to the Grateful Dead‘s 1978 spring tour is coming this fall. The 19-CD Friend of the Devils: April 1978 will be made up of eight previously unreleased complete shows from April 1978.

Those concerts include three Florida shows — April 6 at Curtis Hixon Convention Hall in Tampa, April 7 at Sportatorium in Pembroke Pines and April 8 at Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Jacksonville. There are also two shows, April 10 and 11, at Fox Theatre in Atlanta, plus April 12 at Cameron Indoor Stadium at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, April 14 at Cassell Coliseum in Blacksburg, Virginia, and April 16 at Huntington Civic Center in Huntington, West Virginia.

The set will be released Sept. 20 exclusively at Dead.net and will be limited to 10,000 individually numbered copies. Plus, the Duke University show will released digitally and as a three-CD or four-LP set.

Fans are getting a preview of that Duke show with a live recording of “U.S. Blues,” which has just been released to digital services.

Both Friend of the Devils: April 1978 and Duke ’78 are available for preorder now.

And folks can learn even more about these shows on the Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast, which will celebrate its 10th season on Aug. 29. The show will be dedicated to exploring the eight shows featured in the box set, as well as this period of Dead history.