By the spring of 1983, the Grateful Dead were deep into what longtime fans sometimes call the "Garcia and Brent" era — the lineup that had solidified around Brent Mydland's arrival in 1979 and was now hitting its stride in the early Reagan years. Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, Mickey Hart, and Mydland made for a powerful six-piece unit, and while this period doesn't always get the reverence of, say, 1977 or Europe '72, the band was playing with real muscle and confidence. The spring '83 run found them working through the northeastern college circuit, the kind of regional touring the Dead did so well — intimate enough that the crowd felt the show belonged to them, but big enough that the band was genuinely cooking. Alfond Arena at the University of Maine in Orono is about as far north as the Dead typically ventured in the northeast, and there's something wonderfully remote about a Grateful Dead show landing on a college campus in central Maine in April, when the last of the winter cold still lingers. These college arena stops had a character all their own — packed with students who'd been waiting months for the band to come through, the energy was often rawer and more combustive than the bigger sheds and civic centers. The songs we have confirmed from this show are a compelling pair. "West L.A.
Fadeaway," drawn from the then-recent *Shakedown Street* era and a Garcia-Hunter composition that fits snugly in the early '80s setlists, is a funky, bluesy piece that lets Garcia's guitar settle into a low-down groove. When the band is locked in, it has a kind of late-night, neon-lit shimmer to it. The partial notation of "Lazy Lightning >" suggests an opener to "Supplication," one of the tightest and most satisfying one-two punches in the Weir catalog — a pairing the band was still pulling out in the early '80s with real enthusiasm. The transition from "Lazy Lightning's" urgent energy into the swirling jazz-funk of "Supplication" is worth the price of admission alone when the band nails it. Recording details for this show aren't widely documented, so listeners should approach with the open ears of an archivist — whatever source surfaces may be a circulating audience tape with the warmth and imperfection that comes with the territory. But that's half the charm. If you've never heard the Dead in a small Maine arena on a spring night, now's your chance.