The Grateful Dead / Dec. 31, 1978 / San Francisco (Winterland)

The last show ever held at San Francisco's famed Winterland "was among the more difficult tickets of all time to get," says longtime Grateful Dead publicist Dennis McNally, who at the time, was just a fan and couldn't score a ticket to see the band perform on Dec. 31, 1978.

Having deteriorated beyond affordable repair, the Bay Area ice rink/music hall went out with a bang thanks to the Dead, the Blues Brothers, psychedelic cowboy band New Riders Of The Purple Sage and juggling act the Flying Karamazov Brothers. The Dead's 59 appearances at the venue were more than any other act.

"The Winterland had been the Dead's home since the Sixties," McNally says. "This was New Years Eve and the Dead. The combination of the two ... demand was overwhelming. It was a ritual everyone had to be a part of."

At the show, legendary promoter Bill Graham dressed up as Father Time, descending from the ceiling on a 12-foot long "burning timber of marijuana." "Bill Graham said that if he had the seats, he could have sold a million tickets," McNally says. "It was only a 6,000-seat facility."

The Dead's first set was plagued by technical difficulties, but along with vocalist Donna Godchaux, the band soldiered through classics like "Sugar Magnolia," "Wharf Rat," "Friend of the Devil" and "Casey Jones," as well as the closing tear-jerker "We Bid You Goodnight." "Dark Star" was revived during the third set for the first time in four years.

A free breakfast was eventually served to those stuck around until the end. "There were ceiling tiles that were actually falling, but it was a funky beat-up place," McNally says of the Winterland, now the site of condominiums. "Out of the thousands of Dead shows, it was an exceptionally good show."