By the tail end of 1979, the Grateful Dead were deep into one of their most productive and energized phases of the late era. Brent Mydland had joined on keyboards just months earlier in April, replacing the departing Keith Godchaux, and the band was still in that exciting early-Brent honeymoon period — his gospel-inflected Hammond playing and big, assertive voice gave the group a raw power and emotional directness that felt genuinely new. Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, and Mickey Hart were all playing with focus and fire, and the fall and winter of 1979 tours show a band recalibrated and hungry. They had just released Go to Heaven in this general window of activity, and the arena rock landscape they were inhabiting suited Brent's full-throated style better than many fans initially expected. The Oakland Auditorium Arena was essentially a home court for the Dead. Located just across the Bay from San Francisco, it had been one of their preferred large-room settings for years, and audiences there carried the tribal energy of a hometown crowd who knew every song and every cue. The Auditorium had strong acoustics for a room of its size, and the Dead took advantage of that familiarity to stretch out and take risks in ways they might not in an unfamiliar hall.
A late-December run there carries a particular holiday electricity — these were the shows where you felt like you were celebrating something alongside the band. The one confirmed song in our database from this date is Jack Straw, and while it might seem like a modest data point, Jack Straw is anything but modest as a bellwether for a show's quality. The Weir-Hunter opening number had been a setlist staple since the early seventies, but in the Brent era it got a new, slightly harder edge — Brent's piano punching behind Weir's chords gave it more propulsive weight. A great Jack Straw snaps tight and releases perfectly, with Weir and Garcia trading lines like they're finishing each other's sentences, and in 1979 that interplay was still crackling with novelty energy. The recording circulating from this show is worth seeking out for any fan who wants a portrait of the band at this particular transitional moment — Brent finding his footing, the rhythm section fully locked in, and Oakland bringing its best. Cue it up, let Jack Straw do its job, and see where the night takes you.