By May 1981, the Grateful Dead were deep into what fans sometimes call the "early '80s arena rock" phase — a leaner, more muscular sound that reflected both the realities of touring large venues and the stabilizing influence of Brent Mydland, now well into his third year as the band's keyboardist. Jerry Garcia's playing had an incisive, searching quality in this period, and the rhythm section of Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, and Mickey Hart was locked in with a kind of controlled ferocity. Brent brought Hammond organ muscle and a harder-edged vocal style that pushed the band in directions Keith Godchaux never could, and 1981 shows often reflect that new center of gravity. The Dead were touring steadily, working material that would appear on the forthcoming *Reckoning* and *Dead Set* live albums, both released that same year — a signal that the band was taking stock of where they stood. The Onondaga County War Memorial in Syracuse is one of those mid-sized northeastern arenas that the Dead returned to periodically throughout the late '70s and '80s. It's not a mythologized room the way Cornell's Barton Hall — just up the road — became, but Syracuse audiences were reliably enthusiastic, and the War Memorial's acoustics, while not always kind on tape, could produce a warm and present sound when the taping situation was right. There's something fitting about the Dead playing upstate New York in May, a region that always seemed to bring out an attentive, communal crowd.
The one song confirmed in the database for this show is "They Love Each Other," and even that fragment is enough to orient a listener toward what to seek out. A Garcia original from the *Wake of the Flood* era, TLEO is one of the prettiest mid-tempo grooves in the entire catalog — a song that often served as a vehicle for Garcia to stretch out with fluid, melodic lead work over a loping rhythm that Lesh and the drummers seemed to settle into naturally. When it's working, the song feels effortless, almost like an exhale between more demanding pieces. A well-played TLEO can tell you a lot about where a band is in a given night — whether the guitars are singing, whether everyone is listening to each other. The recording quality for this date would need verification, but if you're sitting on a source for this one, the early minutes of TLEO alone are worth the cue-up. Press play and let Garcia find his footing.