Jerry Garcia’s opinion on Pink Floyd

Jerry Garcia and Grateful Dead became better known primarily as a live band that never played the same show twice. They were free to improvise, making the songs unique at every concert throughout their career.

That level of improvisation was more commonly associated with Psychedelic or Progressive Rock, since many bands from those genres had a similar approach, especially during the late 1960s and early 1970s. One of those groups was Pink Floyd, whom Garcia mentioned a couple of times and gave his opinion on.

What was Jerry Garcia’s opinion on Pink Floyd

Jerry Garcia was a big fan of Pink Floyd and had the chance to see the band live a couple of times. In an interview with Relix magazine in 1980 he was asked if he liked what he was hearing on the radio at the time and he mentioned Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.” “Just the stuff that hit everybody. I like ‘The Wall’ a lot. Everybody likes that.”

Although he liked the albums from the most commercially successful era of the British Progressive Rock band, Garcia also was a big fan of their early years. “I like some of what they do, yeah. (It’s definitely a different bag.) Right, but I do like some of what they do. I love their set up, it’s amazing (during live performances),” he told KSAN in 1972. He had the chance to see the band perform live a couple of times over the years. Curiously, he had an indirect connection with Syd Barrett, the original Pink Floyd songwriter, singer and guitarist.

According to Syd’s former girlfriend Jenny Spires, she had the chance to watch the moon landing at Garcia’s house in 1969, alongside other members of the Dead. “Watching the moon landing with Jerry Garcia just came about through my having met some of the Grateful Dead when they were in London. I’m not sure why I happened to be at his place that day. It had been my birthday a couple of days before. I was on my way up to Oregon and stayed over there on my way.”

Jerry Garcia continued:

“Jerry was a very generous host but he was quiet, really. He offered me drinks, but I don’t drink. I remember how he was surprised by that but we were so amazed at the moon landing. It was extraordinary for me hearing the Floyd play. I can’t really remember having any real meaningful or deep conversation with him. It was just very relaxed with just a few of us sitting around with food and wowing out on the moon landing,” she told Eyeplug Magazine in 2015.

It is interesting to note that Garcia liked the early albums of Pink Floyd. Because they were somewhat similar to the Grateful Dead live. The band was always leaning more toward a jam band style in performance, something the Grateful Dead always embodied.

In the 90s the Dead had one of the most lucrative tours, ranking only a few positions behind Pink Floyd

One of the most distinctive characteristics of the Grateful Dead is that, although they were not as commercially successful in record sales as many of their peers, they spent decades playing to sold-out stadiums. Their identity as a live band largely explains that success. It is what placed them among the top-grossing acts, including the highest-grossing tours of 1994.

That year, they had their most lucrative tour, grossing more than $52 million. It was the fifth highest-grossing tour in the world. They were only behind Barbra Streisand, the Eagles, the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd, who were in second place with more than $100 million.

Blair Jackson, author of “Garcia: An American Life”, recalled that in his book. “In strictly financial terms 1994 was the Grateful Dead’s most successful year ever. The band played eighty-four shows and grossed $52.4 million dollars from touring alone. It made them the fifth most popular road act that year, behind the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, the Eagles and Barbra Streisand.”

“(The previous year the Dead was the number one touring attraction in the United States, grossing $45.6 million dollars on the road with weaker competition.) Add to that the income from merchandising and CDs and you have an improbable corporate giant. A millionaire band that still had a hippie image in the straight world,” he said.