The Grateful Dead have opened up their vault
The Grateful Dead have launched a new streaming platform, Play Dead, giving fans high-resolution access to their extensive live archive.
Announced April 16, the app is built in partnership with nugs.net and Rhino Entertainment, and centres around one thing: opening up the band’s massive live archive properly, and in high resolution.
At its core, this is a serious digitisation effort. We’re talking thousands of tapes pulled from the Dead’s vault—reel-to-reel, multitracks, DATs – all being transferred and mastered for streaming at up to 192kHz/24-bit.
It’s the kind of archival job that’s been talked about for years, but rarely executed at this scale.
At launch, the app includes over 400 full live shows, laid out chronologically so you can follow the band from their mid-’60s beginnings through to the mid-’90s. It’s less “playlist culture,” more “pick a year and get lost in it.”
Importantly, this isn’t just a reshuffle of what’s already floating around on streaming platforms.
Some of the Dead’s most sought-after releases – like the long-running Dave’s Picks series – are now available digitally for the first time, after years of being limited to physical runs that sold out fast.
There’s also a steady rollout planned. Two previously unreleased shows will drop each week, curated by longtime archivist David Lemieux, alongside smaller “lost” recordings that didn’t make earlier releases due to technical limitations.
From a sound perspective, the focus is clearly on doing it properly.
The project is overseen by mastering engineer David Glasser, working from original soundboard recordings – many captured by Owsley “Bear” Stanley – to get as close as possible to what the band actually sounded like in the room.
It’s a step up from the bootlegs and taper recordings that have long defined how fans access this material.
Not replacing that culture entirely, but offering a cleaner, more complete version of it.
Subscription-wise, it sits in premium territory: $9.99 a month (or $99.99 annually), with a cheaper add-on option for existing nugs.net users.
The app is live now across iOS, Android, and desktop.
For a band whose live history is almost as important as their studio output, Play Dead feels like a long-overdue way to experience it properly, all in one place.
