ARCHIVE.ORG

I'm not so bummed about the archive.org decision anymore because, hey, I can still go there and listen to all those shows, and I don't even have to download a couple hundred megs of mp3s and burn them to a bunch of CDRs which I then have to keep track of and put in and out of my CD player and in and out of their cases. The website is still providing a very reliable service with their servers -- I can click on any song title from any set list and the music starts right up within a couple seconds, no buffering, no cut-outs, no error messages. I can read about a legendary show from any era, or even a single performance of a single tune from deep within some show, and then go right to archive.org and listen to that performance within seconds. (Not every show is available for streaming, of course, most notably anything that's been released as an official Dick's Pick, but so many are available. I've been accessing the archive via the indispensible deadlists.com site, with which you can pull up any show and see a detailed set list along with a link to the archive.org page for it, if there is one. It's great to have deadlists.com pull up an entire year's worth of set lists, and then just scroll down and see which ones are available at the archive.)