When relating to the Grateful Dead, the term cover band is a sticky one. Some joked that the Dead were the best cover band in the world. Close fans and family understood their powers more clearly. Rather than a cover band they were more of a snowball collecting remnants of America’s musical past. So the idea of covers has always been different when relating to the Dead. The bottom line is nobody in rock approached music the way they did, so cover or not, every tune became an original.