By the spring of 1982, the Grateful Dead had settled into a configuration that would carry them through the decade — Garcia, Weir, Lesh, Kreutzmann, and Mickey Hart holding down the rhythm section, with Brent Mydland now a few years into his tenure as keyboardist following the loss of Keith Godchaux. Brent was finding his footing in these years, bringing a harder-edged, soul-inflected energy to the band that contrasted sharply with the more ethereal textures of the Keith era. It was a period of transition and recalibration, with the Dead leaning into arena rock while still finding those moments of genuine exploratory weirdness that defined them. The spring 1982 tour was a no-frills, heads-down road run through the Northeast, the kind of regional swing the band could do in their sleep but which sometimes yielded surprisingly inspired nights. Glens Falls, New York sits in the Adirondack foothills, a small industrial city that found itself on the Dead's itinerary in the early '80s largely because its civic center offered a mid-sized room — the kind of 7,000-capacity arena that the band filled comfortably during this era. It wasn't the Spectrum or Madison Square Garden, but smaller market stops like this one often generated a particularly charged atmosphere, with fans who had driven hours to see the band packed in tight and grateful for the proximity. There's something about a Dead show in an industrial upstate New York town in April — the winter just barely loosening its grip — that gives the evening a certain gritty texture.
From what's catalogued here, we have a tantalizing glimpse of the first set. Bertha is always a crowd-pleaser as an opener, a hard-charging Garcia rocker that lets the band announce themselves without much preamble. Me & My Uncle — the John Phillips cowboy standard that the Dead played more times than almost any other cover in their catalog — shows up in its customary role as a palate cleanser between bigger moments. And Supplication, the Bobby Womack soul number that Weir had been working into sets during this period, is worth hunting down; Brent's organ work on that one tended to be particularly evocative. Whether this circulates as a soundboard or an audience recording will shape how deep you can sink into the details, but even a good audience tape from this era captures the room's energy faithfully. The first set alone offers enough to warrant a listen — find it, queue it up, and let 1982 do its thing.