By the fall of 1977, the Grateful Dead were riding one of the most celebrated creative peaks in their long career. The lineup was as strong as it had ever been: Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, and Bill Kreutzmann anchored by Mickey Hart's return to the drum kit, with Keith and Donna Godchaux rounding out the ensemble on keys and vocals. The spring of that year had produced the legendary run of shows — Cornell, Buffalo, Boston Garden — that cemented 1977's reputation as a kind of golden year, and the band carried that momentum into the fall tour with an evident confidence and looseness. They had no new studio album to support, just the ongoing, ever-deepening project of the live performance itself. The Activity Center at Arizona State University in Tempe was, at this point in the band's touring life, the kind of mid-sized college venue they could still fill with a sense of intimacy before the full arena era took hold. ASU sat in the sprawling desert heat of the Valley of the Sun, and there's always something slightly different about a Dead show in the Southwest — the crowd tends to be a particular kind of devoted, drawn from across the region, and the dry air and open skies seemed to suit the band's more expansive tendencies. These college dates were rarely throwaway gigs; the Dead treated university audiences with real respect, often stretching out and taking chances.
The lone confirmed song in our database from this show is Drums, which in the fall of 1977 had fully evolved into a ritual at the center of every second set. With Hart back in the fold since 1975, the percussion duo of Kreutzmann and Hart had developed a genuinely powerful, almost ceremonial dialogue — less a drum solo in the rock tradition and more an exploration of rhythm as its own language. The best versions from this era have a hypnotic, trance-inducing quality, building tension slowly before releasing into whatever psychedelic territory the full band chose to explore on the other side. Recording information for this particular night is limited, and listeners should approach with appropriate expectations — but even a decent audience tape from a 1977 fall show carries the electricity of a band at genuine peak form. If you're exploring the less-documented corners of this celebrated year, this Tempe night is worth your time. Put on your headphones and let the drums pull you in.