The Observatory · a members’ instrument

Thirty years of the Grateful Dead, made playable.

The Observatory is a manipulable instrument built over every Grateful Dead performance ever documented — not a list to scroll, a machine you fly. Every fact is a door; every take streams free from the Internet Archive, as the band intended.

2,314

shows played

1,785

nights on tape

434

songs

34,956

performances

Rebuild any studio album from the actual stage takes, night by night. Trace any song’s entire life across thirty years. Open any night — its setlist, its story, its real tape. Map how songs connect and collide. And generate a concert that never happened, every take a real recording you can play.

What’s below is one corner of the instrument — four rooms, fully working, free. Fly them. Everything deeper, plus six other rooms, lives inside for members. You’re looking at a taste of a much bigger product — click any card to try the sample.

The taste · four working rooms

Each card is the real instrument, locked to one subject — swap the takes, spin the web, read the night. Anything that would leave the sample is greyed and tagged members only.

See it fly · the 90-second tour

The whole instrument in motion — the rooms above, and the six inside.

Not shown here · six more rooms inside

The Observatory is bigger than this taste. Members also get:

Members

🔒 In the Observatory

The Field

Every song a star in a living galaxy — pull one and watch its nights light up.

Members

🔒 In the Observatory

The Solar System

The 434-song sphere and the web of who segues into whom — and who never met.

Members

🔒 In the Observatory

Night Autopsy

Any show pulled apart song by song — timings, the story, the exact tape.

Members

🔒 In the Observatory

Roll Your Own

The instrument writes you a concert that never happened — every take a real recording.

Members

🔒 In the Observatory

From the Archives

Every song and show linked back to the films that tell its story.

Coming soon

🔒 In the works

The Tour Map

Thirty years of tours sweeping across the map, era by era.

Join on YouTube →

One instrument, ten rooms. Open every album, song, night, orbit — and the six above — with a $4.99/month YouTube channel membership. That membership is the only way in.

Thirty years of the Grateful Dead, made playable.

That door’s inside the Observatory.