There are New Year's Eve shows, and then there is New Year's Eve at Winterland. The Dead had a particular relationship with Bill Graham's beloved San Francisco barn — a cavernous former skating rink that somehow managed to feel intimate — and by December 31, 1977, it had become the unofficial spiritual home of the band's most celebratory nights. This was the close of one of the most celebrated years in the band's entire history. The 1977 touring cycle had produced some of the most technically refined and emotionally charged playing of any rock band in any era, with Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, Mickey Hart, and the still-relatively-young Keith and Donna Godchaux locked into a chemistry that would define the word "peak" for generations of listeners. Keith in particular was a revelatory presence in 1977, his piano both lyrical and muscular in ways that gave the band an almost orchestral depth. The songs in our database from this night offer a compelling slice of what made that lineup so special. "Fire on the Mountain" had only recently entered the rotation — Garcia and Hart had debuted it earlier in the year, and by year's end it was a glowing centerpiece, that hypnotic, cycling groove giving Garcia room to spin long melodic lines over a rhythm that never seems to arrive or depart, just hover.
"Truckin'" flowing directly into "Friend of the Devil" is the kind of segue that rewards close listening — the way the band navigates from the road-worn swagger of one into the gentle, almost confessional intimacy of the other says everything about their range. And "Jack Straw," one of Weir's finest vehicles, is always worth seeking out from any '77 show, where the harmonies between Weir and Garcia could be genuinely gorgeous. A New Year's Eve crowd at Winterland was unlike any other — thousands of San Franciscans who had been following this band since the Haight days, packed into a room draped in the particular magic of a midnight countdown. The energy in the building on these nights was something Graham understood better than almost anyone, and the Dead fed off it. Recordings from the Winterland NYE runs tend to be well-documented, and this show has circulated in solid form. Whether you come to it via soundboard or a well-positioned audience tape, the warmth of the room comes through. Put this one on after dark, pour something worthwhile, and let 1977 close out the way it deserves.