By the spring of 1984, the Grateful Dead were deep into what longtime fans sometimes call the "Brent era" — a more muscular, keyboard-driven sound anchored by Brent Mydland's Hammond B-3 and increasingly powerful voice. Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, and the Rhythm Devils were all firing, and the band had settled into a comfortable but often inspired groove of long touring runs. This was also the period just before the mid-eighties commercial resurgence that would eventually bring "Touch of Grey" and a whole new generation of fans; in early 1984, the Dead were still very much a cult institution, playing to the faithful who had been there for years. There's something intimate and almost unguarded about shows from this window. The Marin Veterans Memorial Auditorium — sitting just across the Golden Gate in San Rafael, essentially the Dead's backyard — was a natural home court for the band throughout the eighties. Shows here had a particular warmth to them, the kind of relaxed authority a band brings when they're playing practically down the street from their own offices and rehearsal spaces. The room itself is a handsome civic auditorium with good acoustics and a capacity that kept things from getting too cavernous. When the Dead played Marin, there was often a sense that the real Deadhead community — the Bay Area faithful — was front and center.
The songs we have from this show tell a nice story about the night. "Feel Like a Stranger" was by then a reliable show-opener, Weir's synth-disco workout transformed into something genuinely funky and propulsive in the live setting — listen for how the groove locks in and whether the band lets it breathe before it fully crests. "He's Gone" flowing into something (that transition tag is worth chasing down) is one of the Dead's most emotionally resonant vehicles, a song that can move from elegiac to utterly transcendent depending on where Garcia takes it vocally. "Althea" — one of Garcia's finest compositions from Go to Heaven — is a song that rewards patience; when it opens up in the second half, the conversation between Garcia's lead and Lesh's bass lines is some of the most beautiful interplay in the entire catalog. "New Minglewood Blues" rounds things out with some good-natured barnstorming energy. Recording quality for Marin Vets shows from this period varies, but the venue's manageable size often yielded clean audience tapes, and soundboard sources circulate from several of these home-region dates. Whatever you're working with here, dial in and let "Althea" do what it does. You won't regret it.