May 7, 1970 finds the Grateful Dead in a particularly electric moment of transition and creative ferment. The band had just released *Workingman's Dead* — or were right on the cusp of it, the album hitting shelves that June — and the acoustic country-folk influences were beginning to seep into their live work alongside the still-churning psychedelic jams that defined their late-'60s identity. This is the classic five-piece lineup: Garcia, Weir, Pigpen, Lesh, and Kreutzmann, with Mickey Hart in the drum chair as well during this period of the two-drummer configuration. The Kent State shootings had occurred just days earlier, on May 4th, casting a heavy shadow across college campuses nationwide, and MIT — a hotbed of student activism and antiwar organizing — would have been a charged, emotionally alive environment for a rock show. Playing a gymnasium on a university campus in the spring of 1970 puts this squarely in the tradition of the Dead as community events, shows that felt less like concerts and more like gatherings. Dupont Gymnasium isn't a legendary room in the Dead canon the way Fillmore West or the Capitol Theatre are, but that's part of what makes it interesting. These smaller, scrappier college venues often produced some of the loosest, most exploratory performances of the era — the band playing to a crowd of a few hundred rather than a few thousand, the room's energy compressed and immediate.
MIT sits in Cambridge, and the greater Boston area was always fertile Dead territory, a college-dense audience full of the kind of attentive, freaky listeners who brought something out in the band. The one song we have confirmed from this show is "Portland Woman," a Pigpen-led blues number that was a staple of this era's sets. Pigpen was still very much a central force in 1970 — his gruff, soulful delivery giving the Dead a raw, roadhouse edge that set their early shows apart. "Portland Woman" is one of his more underappreciated vehicles, a slow-burn blues that gave him room to stretch, and hearing it in this spring 1970 context is a treat for any fan who wants to understand just how much the band's identity depended on Pigpen's presence at this stage. Recording quality for shows from this era varies considerably — many survive as single-mic audience tapes of varying fidelity — but even a rough recording of the Dead in May 1970 is a window into something irreplaceable. Put on your headphones and let 1970 find you.