With hundreds of hours of live Grateful Dead recordings available from their peak periods, you may ask yourself why you’d want to listen to the Dead in the ‘80s and ‘90s? It's a reasonable question for even a dedicated Deadhead. Tapes capturing the band’s long, strange twilight can often be a slog, with two drummers seemingly determined to out-plod one other, deeply questionable guitar and keyboard tones, and aimless, confused jams.
And yet, during these years, the Dead were at the height of their popularity, as stadiums across the USA swelled with old heads and new converts, all in search of a little bit of that old magic. Did they find it? Well, yeah. Fans who caught the Dead in concert in their latter days will spin entertaining tales of parking lot shenanigans, vibes of the good/bad/weird variety, and chemically induced visions. Ask the nearest hippie -- you just had to be there, man. In many ways, the music played onstage was a backdrop for the overall scene; think of these concerts as the interactive Acid Tests of the mid-60s on an epic, extremely messy scale.
So perhaps the best way to understand live Dead in the 80s and 90s is via audience tapes, once furtively traded through snail mail and now available to stream or download on Archive.org. What these recordings might lack in clarity they make up for in atmosphere, trading the sometimes cold-and-clinical nature of the soundboard for a shifting swirl of crowd participation and audio verite ambiance. It’s the closest thing to being there.
Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia, Maryland, June 30, 1985
By most accounts, 1985 was a low point in the Grateful Dead’s history, mainly due to Jerry Garcia’s rapidly declining health. Drug use, a lamentable diet and decades of heavy smoking meant that the once alert guitarist was a shell of his former self -- photos taken during the time show a man aged well beyond his 43 years. Even in this state, Garcia was still capable of setting off serious musical fireworks, and kicking his sleepwalking bandmates awake.
This particular summer of ‘85 show, taped by the Oade Brothers, takes a little while to get going: Weir subjects the crowd to his amateurish (to put it nicely) slide guitar stylings on “CC Rider,” and Garcia steps on a pedal at some point that makes his instrument sound like a treacly saxophone. But towards the end of the first set, the Dead lock into the dank disco groove of “Shakedown Street” and ride it for 12+ minutes, Garcia and Weir firing out an endless supply of nervous/nervy riffs and keyboardist Brent Mydland adding strange-but-stirring orchestral touches. On the tape, you can hear the whole amphitheater egging the band on, collectively recognizing that the Dead have come to life.
The highlight of the second set at Merriweather Post Pavilion is the lengthy excursion known as “Drums > Space.” For some, these improvisational interludes are interminable and indulgent. But listening to them can be a fascinating experience, as the Dead gleefully mix up a bizarre brew of heavily treated percussion, subsonic frequencies and corrosive feedback. Again, it helps to hear the audience members (at least those who didn’t use the opportunity to hit the restroom) respond to these out sounds, freaking and peaking along with the Dead. Thirty years later, it’s still a trip.