By the fall of 1981, the Grateful Dead had settled into a configuration and a sound that many fans hold in deep affection: Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, Mickey Hart, and Brent Mydland, who had by this point been in the fold for a couple of years following Keith Godchaux's departure. Brent brought a muscular, bluesy keyboard presence that gave the band a harder, more electric edge than the warm, slightly hazier sound of the Keith-and-Donna years. The early '80s Dead were a touring machine, leaning into a tighter, more driving style that suited the arena circuit they were increasingly calling home — though they still took the show to Europe with some regularity, and those overseas dates tended to carry a special electricity. The Rainbow Theatre in London is one of those rooms with genuine rock-and-roll bones. Situated in the Finsbury Park neighborhood, the Rainbow had hosted the Who, Jimi Hendrix, and a pantheon of classic rock acts before its concert run wound down in the early '80s. For the Dead to play there was to plug into a storied circuit, and London audiences — knowledgeable, passionate, and slightly outside the usual American Deadhead ecosystem — often pushed the band into inspired territory. A Dead show at the Rainbow carried weight on both sides of the Atlantic.
The fragments we have from this night in our database give a tantalizing glimpse of the show's architecture. "Not Fade Away" seguing into "Me and My Uncle" is a lovely bit of setlist craft — the Buddy Holly-derived groove of NFA, with its rolling Bo Diddley shuffle and the way the band could stretch it into something hypnotic or lock it down into something lean and propulsive, giving way to the John Phillips country road-song that was one of Weir's most reliable and lovable staples. That pairing suggests a set that was moving with purpose, the band threading familiar material into something greater than the sum of its parts. Listeners should tune their ears to the rhythm section in particular on a night like this — Hart and Kreutzmann were in a powerful groove during this era, and Brent's organ work underneath the "Me and My Uncle" verses has a churning, satisfying quality when he's really locked in. The recording source for this date will shape your experience, but whatever you're working with, the London crowd's enthusiasm has a way of bleeding through. Give this one a spin and let it take you somewhere.