'I Heard the Grateful Dead at the Lyceum '72,' the shirt reads, though Healy recalls nothing about the shows. One unusually worn-out piece was imported from London and commemorates the conclusion of the arduous two-month-long trek across the Continent that would be featured on the Europe '72 live album. Healy's collection is loaded with sartorial souvenirs from moments that can be tough to remember. The tee for the band's spring 1984 tour, around the time they scrapped a studio album but continued building an audience on the road.

It transformed it from a bunch of monkeys on typewriters to educated people making music. Maybe LSD, maybe peyote, maybe mushrooms. And so it was probably because of the psychedelics. I saw the whole, complete picture, the entire scope of exactly what it needed, what was missing. “But there was a moment when I flashed on what it was all supposed to sound like. “I guess you would call it a hallucination or a dream or a bolt of lighting that hit me between the eyes or wherever,” he says. Like the band, he had been seriously dedicated to his craft long before trying psychedelics, but the psychedelics pushed him further.

Healy became obsessed with the Dead's sound. I don't really advocate that form of moneymaking, but it was a means to an end.” But my goal was to do the sound system, and I was pretty much willing to do almost anything short of horrible treachery to get it to happen. “I didn't even really smoke yet, and I hadn't taken LSD yet, either. “I sold pot and acid,” he says, laughing. Doing that required renting some new speakers, and to raise the necessary funds, Healy invoked what might be called hip economics. Whenever anybody was singing, the words were just completely garbled.” After the show, he politely challenged the Dead's Jerry Garcia over the state of the concert's sound, and Garcia politely challenged him to do better. sound was just so horrendous,” he recalls. Healy fixed the recalcitrant amplifier but was still bothered by what he heard. “The dream was there, the model of sitting in your living room in front of the world's greatest stereo, smoking the fattest, biggest jay you can and listening to the most fabulous music over an incredible sound system, for each and every person at a concert.”

Vintage grateful dead shirt