Welcome Back to Light

A portion of the Grateful Dead’s only Top Ten charting album In the Dark was actually recorded with the lights out, but this segment never made onto the album.  The album was recorded in an unusual fashion, because the band was constantly touring and they had a lot of the new material that they had been playing live for several years, so they decided to record the basic tracks live on stage in an empty auditorium.  Playing without an audience just to themselves was an experiment for them.

Drummer Mickey Heart said that they set their equipment up onstage, but there was no audience and as they were looking at each other, he came up with the idea to turn the lights off.  He told the equipment guy, “On my signal, turn the lights off”.  Mickey didn’t tell anybody else, about his joke.  When the signal was given, the lights went…