50 free Grateful Dead trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
46 free Grateful Dead trivia questions with answers. Grateful Dead trivia for Deadheads and the curious. The quiz starts in Palo Alto in 1965 with the Warlocks and Ken Kesey's Acid Tests, follows the band through Owsley Stanley's Wall of Sound, the folk-country turn of Workingman's Dead and American Beauty, the pyramids in 1978, Cornell '77 and the surprise Top 40 hit 'Touch of Grey', and ends with Fare Thee Well, Dead & Company at Sphere and the record for most Top 40 albums. Along the way it asks about the members (Garcia's missing finger, Pigpen's whiskey, Phil Lesh's six-string bass, Bob Weir's birth name), the iconography (dancing bears, Steal Your Face), the tapers, and guests from Branford Marsalis to Bruce Hornsby. Easy questions come first; the harder ones will separate the casual listener from someone who knows the setlists. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the band, its members, albums and songs, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which California city was the Grateful Dead formed in 1965?
Palo Alto
They grew out of a Palo Alto jug band called Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions.
Q 02What was the band's original name before they became the Grateful Dead?
The Warlocks
Their first Warlocks show was at Magoo's Pizza Parlor in Menlo Park on 5 May 1965.
Q 03Where did Jerry Garcia find the name 'Grateful Dead'?
In a dictionary
The entry described a soul showing gratitude to whoever arranged its burial, a motif found in folktales worldwide.
Q 04The first show under the name Grateful Dead, in December 1965, was at one of whose Acid Tests?
Ken Kesey's
Kesey's Merry Pranksters staged the LSD-fuelled happenings; the Dead were the house band.
Q 05What are Grateful Dead fans called?
Deadheads
The name was made official by a notice inside the 1971 Skull and Roses album asking 'Dead Heads' to write in.
Q 06Which founding member played keyboards and harmonica and died in 1973?
Ron 'Pigpen' McKernan
Unlike his bandmates he shunned psychedelics in favour of whiskey and fortified wine, which wrecked his liver.
Q 07Who was the Grateful Dead's non-performing lyricist from 1967, and Garcia's main writing partner?
Robert Hunter
He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the band in 1994, the only lyricist so honoured with them.
Q 08Which instrument did Phil Lesh play?
Bass guitar
He developed a unique improvised six-string bass style over the band's 30 years.
Q 09The Grateful Dead's only Top 40 single was which 1987 song?
Touch of Grey
It reached the chart 17 years after their Hot 100 debut, then the longest such gap for any band.
Q 10What did the MTV video for the Dead's only Top 40 hit famously feature?
Skeleton puppets of the group
Phil Lesh's skeleton catches a rose in its teeth and a dog runs off with Mickey Hart's lower leg.
Q 11Which 1987 album, the band's best-selling studio record, contained their only Top 40 hit?
In the Dark
It came a year after Garcia's diabetic coma; that year the band also toured with Bob Dylan.
Q 12Which two 1970 albums marked the band's turn toward folk and country songwriting?
Workingman's Dead / American Beauty
Garcia had just bought a pedal steel guitar; both records came from one prolific Garcia-Hunter year.
Q 13Which American Beauty song was released as a single, backed with 'Ripple'?
Truckin'
The others all got radio airplay too, making it the band's most familiar studio album.
Q 21At which 1973 festival did the Dead play to their biggest crowd, an estimated 600,000?
Watkins Glen Summer Jam
They shared the bill with the Allman Brothers Band and the Band.
Q 22In 1978 the Grateful Dead played three nights at which world monument?
The Great Pyramid of Giza
A lunar eclipse fell during the run, and the shows became the live album Rocking the Cradle.
Q 23Which Ithaca, New York concert recording was added to the National Recording Registry?
Cornell University, 8 May 1977
Q 14American Beauty was recorded after the band discovered their manager Lenny Hart had done what?
Skipped town with much of their money
He was drummer Mickey Hart's father, and had secretly renewed the Warner contract too.
Q 15What was the name of the enormous custom PA rig the Dead toured with in 1974?
The Wall of Sound
Alembic helped build it; the band's soundman Owsley Stanley had designed their earlier PA rigs.
Q 16Owsley 'Bear' Stanley, the band's early soundman, was also famous for what?
Being one of the largest LSD suppliers
He went to jail for manufacturing LSD in 1970 and the dancing bears are named after him.
Q 17The famous 'dancing bears' were drawn for which 1973 album, and honour whom?
Bear's Choice, honouring Owsley Stanley
Their artist Bob Thomas said they are not dancing at all but doing a 'high-stepping march'.
Q 18What is the name of the red, white and blue skull-and-lightning-bolt logo?
Steal Your Face
It was designed by Owsley Stanley and Bob Thomas to mark the band's equipment before it became an album cover.
Q 19What did the Grateful Dead famously permit that most bands forbade?
Fans taping their concerts
A dedicated 'tapers' section behind the soundboard eventually solved the forest of microphones.
Q 20Roughly how many concerts did the Grateful Dead play in their 30 years?
More than 2,300
They played to an estimated 25 million people, more than any other band, and their documented repertoire tops 500 songs.
The Barton Hall show is many Deadheads' pick for the greatest of them all.
Q 24Where and when was the Grateful Dead's final concert?
Soldier Field, Chicago, 9 July 1995
Jerry Garcia died exactly a month later, on 9 August.
Q 25Where did Jerry Garcia die in August 1995?
A rehab centre in Forest Knolls
He had checked into Serenity Knolls after a two-week stay at the Betty Ford Center.
Q 26What happened to Jerry Garcia's right middle finger when he was four?
Most of it was cut off with an axe
His brother wielded the axe; Garcia later used the stump to hitchhike and unsettle strangers.
Q 27Which ice cream maker launched a Cherry Garcia flavour in 1987, the first named for a musician?
Ben & Jerry's
The Vermont company dedicated it to him while he was still alive and touring.
Q 28Which pop-rock guitarist joined Weir, Hart and Kreutzmann to form Dead & Company in 2015?
John Mayer
He got hooked after Pandora served him 'Althea' in 2011.
Q 29Dead & Company played a 30-show residency in 2024 at which Las Vegas venue?
Sphere
'Dead Forever: Live at Sphere' ran from May to August 2024.
Q 30Which Phish guitarist joined the 2015 'Fare Thee Well' 50th-anniversary shows?
Trey Anastasio
Bruce Hornsby and Jeff Chimenti also played the five shows in Santa Clara and Chicago.