May 15, 1981 finds the Grateful Dead deep in their early-eighties stride — a period that doesn't always get its due but rewards patient listeners enormously. Brent Mydland was now firmly established behind the keyboards, having replaced Keith Godchaux in 1979, and his bluesy Hammond attack and big voice had reshaped the band's center of gravity. Jerry Garcia's playing in this era carries a lean, focused quality; the sprawling cosmic wanderings of the mid-seventies had given way to something more muscular and direct, even as the improvisational instincts remained fully intact. The band was gigging heavily through the spring of 1981, working the East Coast college and arena circuit, keeping the machine running with characteristic road-warrior efficiency. Rutgers University's Athletic Center in New Brunswick, New Jersey isn't one of the hallowed rooms that gets name-dropped in the same breath as Cornell's Barton Hall or the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, but that's part of what makes a show like this worth digging into. College gymnasium shows in this era often captured something loose and electric — crowds packed in close, acoustics a little raw, the band feeding off an audience that skewed young and hungry. New Jersey has always been fiercely loyal Dead country, and a spring night at a university fieldhouse tends to bring out a particular kind of joyful chaos.
The songs we have from this show tell an interesting story. "Little Red Rooster" was a Pigpen staple that the band kept breathing life into long after his passing, and hearing it in 1981 with Brent at the helm is a fascinating document — a different animal from the Pig era, bluesier in a different register, more polished but still raw where it needs to be. "Franklin's Tower" is one of Garcia and Hunter's great circular, philosophical rockers, a song that opens up beautifully when the band is locked in and can stretch the groove without losing the thread. And a "Not Fade Away" segue to close things out is classic Dead architecture — that Bo Diddley beat building to something hypnotic, the crowd clapping along, the energy ratcheting up until it feels inevitable. Recording information on this show may be limited to an audience source, so adjust your expectations accordingly — but sometimes those rough-around-the-edges tapes carry a room's atmosphere in ways a pristine soundboard never could. Put on the headphones, let the Rooster strut, and see where Franklin's Tower takes you.