Long Strange Trip

If you went to a Grateful Dead concert, chances were that you don’t remember much about it, thanks to substances that the legendary band celebrated and consumed. In four hours – shorter than most Grateful Dead performances – Amir Bar-Lev tracks the formation of the band that gave us Haight-Ashbury, the summer of love, and acid rock. Jerry Garcia, the band’s leader and lead guitarist, gave a sound to pop music that it has never shaken. Bar-Lev, with a sea of archival footage and music, shows you a band that rallied a generation and kept playing through drugs, anarchy and early death. Even if you’re not a Deadhead, you’ll find that there is life long after the 60’s in this ambitious doc.

Filmography: Happy Valley (2014), The Tillman Story (2010), My Kid Could Paint That (2007), Fighter (2001).