George Lyons Presents the Grateful Dead Like You’ve Never Heard Them — Lyons Den Radio Show

December 15, 2025·3 hr 53 min·10 clips

Discover the Grateful Dead's 80-CD box set with 73 hours of music, a numbered edition that sold out instantly.

This episode of The Lyons Den Radio Show features host George Lyons presenting a curated live Grateful Dead concert. Lyons, a Las Vegas-based radio host on KUNV, pre-recorded this music-focused episode for his audience. The episode centers on playing a complete 1976 Grateful Dead concert from the band's extensive "30 Trips Around the Sun" box set. Lyons introduces the "30 Trips Around the Sun" collection, a Rhino Records release spanning the Grateful Dead's career from 1965 to 1995. The physical box set was a limited, numbered edition of 6,500 copies containing 80 CDs with over 73 hours of music. He highlights the included USB drive, shaped like a lightning bolt, which contained high-quality 96 kHz/24-bit FLAC audio files alongside MP3s. The selected concert for broadcast was recorded on October 3, 1976, at Cobo Arena in Detroit, Michigan. Lyons notes 1976 was a significant year as the band returned strongly after a near-hiatus in 1975, where they performed only four shows. The 1975 show included in the box set is from Golden Gate Park in September. The band's lineup for this 1976 performance included Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Donna Jean Godchaux, Keith Godchaux, Phil Lesh, and drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzman. A surprising detail is the sheer scale of the box set, quantified at 4,443 minutes and 28 seconds of music. Lyons emphasizes the "crispy" and "superb" audio quality of these archival recordings, considering them a pinnacle for collectors. He mentions the band had recently finished using their massive "Wall of Sound" PA system in 1974-75 prior to this 1976 show. The host frames this concert as a mind-blowing experience, promising it will take listeners to the end of his four-hour show. The transcript includes lyrical excerpts from the concert's opening songs, "Mama Tried" and "El Paso." The tone is enthusiastic and conversational, with Lyons speaking directly to listeners as a knowledgeable music curator. The style is primarily a DJ-set format, blending music playback with background commentary on the recordings. This episode is ideal for Grateful Dead enthusiasts, audiophiles interested in high-resolution audio formats, and fans of classic rock radio shows. Listeners seeking interviews, debates, or non-music content might choose to skip this purely musical presentation.

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The Lyons Den Radio Show