At this point in their career, the Dead had grown into such a behemoth institution with the Wall of Sound and massive road crew along with a large number of other employees – some 40 or 50 altogether – so much so that the boys were losing money at every turn. They also felt that within the confines of the Grateful Dead they were increasingly unable to continue to explore musically in the way they wanted to. So, they decided to do the only thing they could think of, which was call it quits with a five-show run at Winterland. This is the last of those shows, which, at the time, meant that everyone there thought it was the last Grateful Dead show of all time.