By May 1981, the Grateful Dead were well into the Brent Mydland era, and the band had settled into a road-hardened groove that would define much of the early '80s. Brent, now two years into his tenure following the departure of Keith and Donna Godchaux, brought a muscular, bluesy intensity to the keys that pushed the band in harder, more direct directions. Jerry Garcia's playing in this period was focused and confident, and the rhythm section of Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, and Phil Lesh was locked in tight. The band had released Go to Heaven the previous year to mixed critical reception, but on stage they were finding their footing in a new decade, playing a broader selection of venues as their audience continued to grow. Hampton Coliseum holds a special place in the hearts of Deadheads — a squat, UFO-shaped arena in coastal Virginia that became one of the band's favorite haunts through the '80s and into the '90s. The room had an almost mythical reputation among tapers and fans for its acoustics and electricity, and the Hampton crowd developed a fierce local loyalty. Shows there often carried a particular intensity, as if both band and audience knew they were somewhere worth showing up for.
The songs we have from this show represent a solid cross-section of the early '80s repertoire. "Friend of the Devil" was a perennial first-set staple by this point, typically delivered at a strolling, mid-tempo pace that let Garcia's vocal phrasing do most of the work — listen for how the band breathes through the changes together. "Me and My Uncle" was the band's most-played song for much of their career, a honky-tonk cowboy number that Weir owned completely, and hearing it slotted right after "Friend of the Devil" suggests a relaxed, Americana-inflected stretch in the first set. "Tennessee Jed" into "Alabama Getaway" is a fine pairing — "Jed" rolling out its bluesy, swampy groove before giving way to the punchy shuffle of "Alabama Getaway," one of the Go to Heaven-era songs that actually translated beautifully to the live stage. The drums segment rounding out what we have points to the full, sprawling second-set construction that defined Dead shows of this era. Recording quality for Hampton shows from this period varies, but several well-circulated sources exist. Whatever you're spinning, lean in when the band hits that "Alabama Getaway" groove — it's the kind of moment that reminds you exactly why people kept following this band around.