Long Strange Trip (2017)

A documentary about the Grateful Dead is complicated for me.  I saw them for the first time in 1974, and for the last time in 1995, and literally hundreds of times in between.  They define the bookends of my youth.  So while I do not have first hand knowledge of much of the beginning, I know quite a bit about the middle and the end from the standpoint of a Dead Head who saw hundreds of shows.  For example, when i saw the Grateful Dead exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I had far more concert tickets, back stage passes, and bootleg tapes than they did. 
So maybe I am too close to it all, but there were a number of things that I loved about this documentary. One was that it captured the audience side of the experience very well.  We did feel the energy of the show, and while there were good nights and nights that were off, it was always an adventure that exceeded just the music, or what happened within the venue.  The parking lot was always interesting, and you would never just show up in time to go into the show.  It also demonstrated that trying to stay true to your roots as a touring band gets really tiring when you get into your 0's and 50's and the toll that took on the band in general and Garcia specifically.  The other thing that as a fan I always found fascinating is that their roadies and their sound and lights designers were employees, not just people they hired on the spot.  So the whole crew was a known entity that traveled everywhere with them.  It is just an unusual musical mark in time that is pretty well captured here.