--- title: Grateful Dead Day: The History of the May 8 Music Holiday description: May 8 marks "Grateful Dead Day," and this year the celebration is bigger than usual, in honor of a special anniversary. canonical: https://time.com/4770537/grateful-dead-day-cornell-concert-anniversary/ author: Mahita Gajanan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-05-08T15:02:20.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T04:47:57.519Z article:section: History og:title: Why Today Marks Grateful Dead Day og:description: The celebrations this year are bigger than usual thanks to a special anniversary og:url: https://time.com/4770537/grateful-dead-day-cornell-concert-anniversary/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte0343bfd97a293df/6988cc588e0601151e46a448/grateful-dead.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Grateful Dead live og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why Today Marks Grateful Dead Day twitter:description: The celebrations this year are bigger than usual thanks to a special anniversary twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte0343bfd97a293df/6988cc588e0601151e46a448/grateful-dead.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why Today Marks Grateful Dead Day by [Mahita Gajanan](https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Gajanan is an editor at TIME. May 8, 2017 3:02 PM UTC  The Grateful Dead perform at Winterland in San Francisco, on March 20, 1977. The Grateful Dead perform at Winterland in San Francisco, on March 20, 1977.Ed Perlstein—Getty Images by [Mahita Gajanan](https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Gajanan is an editor at TIME. May 8, 2017 3:02 PM UTC Monday marks “Grateful Dead Day,” which falls, this year, on the 40th anniversary of the band’s famed concert at Cornell University. In 1977, the Grateful Dead performed a show at Cornell’s Barton Hall — a concert that became the stuff of legend among the Dead’s [hefty repertoire of live performances](http://time.com/3847162/grateful-dead-50/). Honored by the [Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/programs/static/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/GratefulDead.pdf) in 2011, the Barton Hall show gave way to “Grateful Dead Day,” which is honored each year in Ithaca, N.Y. [Deadheads](http://time.com/3919040/history-deadheads/) are bringing even more enthusiasm than usual to the concert’s 40th anniversary. _Cornell ’77_, a new book about the show by Peter Conners that presents a deep dive into the mythos of the concert, was recently published. Additionally, a remastered recording called _Cornell 5/8/77_ will be released to honor the day. But what makes the performance, one out of the [Dead’s thousands of concerts](http://time.com/3946460/grateful-dead-last-show-history/), so legendary? High-quality bootleg recordings from the show, which were quickly passed around among tape collectors, became very popular, according to the Library of Congress. And it seems like there was just something in the air on that particular night that catapulted the band to a transcendental level. “I had seen the Grateful Dead a couple times prior but this time it was clear they’d upped the ante,” Rick Bleier, who attended the show on his 27th birthday, [told the Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/programs/static/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/GratefulDead.pdf). “The band looked amazed. I have a clear-as-yesterday memory of Garcia’s face as he shook his head and grinned from ear-to-Cheshire-cat-ear.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4770537/grateful-dead-day-cornell-concert-anniversary/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4770537/grateful-dead-day-cornell-concert-anniversary/"},"headline":"Why Today Marks Grateful Dead Day","datePublished":"2017-05-08T15:02:20.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T04:47:57.519Z","description":"It's the Dead's 40th anniversary of the Barton Hall show","url":"https://time.com/4770537/grateful-dead-day-cornell-concert-anniversary/","keywords":["Music","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte0343bfd97a293df/6988cc588e0601151e46a448/grateful-dead.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mahita Gajanan","jobTitle":"Gajanan is an editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte0343bfd97a293df/6988cc588e0601151e46a448/grateful-dead.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Grateful Dead live","caption":"The Grateful Dead perform at Winterland in San Francisco, on March 20, 1977.","creditText":"Ed Perlstein—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4770537/grateful-dead-day-cornell-concert-anniversary/","name":"Why Today Marks Grateful Dead Day"}}]}] ```