Jerry Garcia | MC 2500, used in JGB

Property of Grateful Dead Productions

Jerry Garcia

McIntosh MC 2500

Stereo power amplifier (10.5 x 19 x 17’’), 500 watts per channel or 1000 watts monoblock, with anodized gold and black panel. Front panel with white tape reading “SUB” above left power meter, green tape reading “384” below right power meter, Steal Your Face emblem below power guard. Serial number: CS2203. 

This amp was used on tour by Garcia’s side project, the Jerry Garcia Band. The band was formed in 1975 as a place for Garcia to explore his musical interests beyond the scope of the Dead. The side project predominantly played covers, focusing less on experimental and world music influences, and instead drawing more prominently from rhythm and blues, reggae, gospel, and Americana—their “repertoire came form Motown and Trenchtown, Chicago Blues and Southern gospel, Irving Berlin and Mick Jagger, Hoagy Carmichael and Van Morrison” (Dodd and Spaulding, 291). Garcia’s musical taste was wide ranging, and the band was an extremely important outlet for his creativity; it remained his most important side project, spanning twenty years until his death.

Produced from 1980-1990.