By January 1979, the Grateful Dead had settled into one of their most comfortable and confident lineups. Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, and Mickey Hart were all locked in, with Keith and Donna Godchaux still holding down keyboards and vocals — though Keith's tenure was nearing its end, and some listeners of this period can hear the early signs of drift that would lead to his departure later that year. Brent Mydland would arrive in April, dramatically reshaping the band's sound, which makes every show from this winter window something of a document of the Godchaux era in its final chapter. The 1979 Dead are looser and warmer than their 1977 peak but still capable of real transcendence, and they were playing with the familiarity of a band that had grown comfortable in large rooms. The New Haven Coliseum was exactly that — a large room, a hockey barn-turned-arena on the southern Connecticut coast that the Dead visited regularly throughout the seventies and into the eighties. New Haven crowds were famously devoted; the city's mix of Yale students, regional Deadheads, and Northeast corridor faithful gave these shows a particular energy, the kind that comes from a fan base who had made the trip and intended to get their money's worth. The Coliseum wasn't a legendary room in the way that Cornell's Barton Hall or San Francisco's Winterland were, but it was a reliable and beloved stop on the northeastern circuit, and the Dead tended to stretch out and play hard there.
The lone song we have catalogued from this date is Around and Around, the Chuck Berry cover the band had been playing since the early days and never quite put down. By 1979 it was a dependable second-set or set-closing rocker, the kind of song where the Dead let the groove breathe and the crowd ignite. Garcia's guitar work on Berry tunes could swing from faithful homage to full-on psychedelic dismantling depending on the night, and Weir — who often anchored these Chuck Berry vehicles — had a way of driving the rhythm that made the whole room move. A hot Around and Around is a thing of genuine joy. The recording circulating from this show is worth seeking out for anyone building a picture of the Godchaux-era Dead in their final months together. Pop it on, let the energy of a New Haven winter night wash over you, and remember what it meant to be in that room.