By the fall of 1984, the Grateful Dead had settled into a groove that was distinctly their own within the decade — arena-sized but still exploratory, leaning harder on Garcia's increasingly fluid electric tone and the locked-in rhythm section of Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, and Phil Lesh. Brent Mydland was now five years into his tenure as keyboardist, and while he never stopped being compared to Keith Godchaux by old-timers, by this point he had genuinely become indispensable — his Hammond-driven power and harmony vocals giving the band a muscular, bluesy center. This October run through the mid-Atlantic and Southeast found the Dead in working form, playing the kind of mid-sized coliseums that had become their natural habitat in the Reagan years, towns that weren't San Francisco or New York but were nevertheless packed with devoted regional fans who knew every word. Richmond Coliseum sits in Virginia's capital city, a workmanlike arena that the Dead visited periodically throughout the '80s. It's not a room that gets the romantic treatment the way Red Rocks or Frost Amphitheater does, but that's part of what makes a night like this worth digging into — these are the shows where the band played for rooms full of people who didn't take it for granted, and the energy on the floor often reflected that. The mid-Atlantic Dead scene was fervent and tight-knit, and Richmond crowds tended to be loud and locked in.
Of the songs in our database from this show, each tells you something worth knowing. They Love Each Other is one of Garcia's most warmly melodic compositions, a holdover from the early '70s that never lost its breezy charm — when Garcia is feeling it, the song practically floats, and it's always worth noting how his voice sits in relation to the band's dynamics on a given night. Throwing Stones, by contrast, is quintessentially mid-'80s Dead: Bob Weir's politically charged arena-rocker, propulsive and anthemic, built for exactly this kind of big room. And then there's Space — that mysterious percussion-driven drift between drummers and soloists that could go anywhere on any given night, a blank canvas that reveals exactly where the band's collective head is at. Recording information for this show may vary depending on the source in circulation, so check the tape notes carefully before settling in — but whatever you're working with, put on headphones, let Brent's organ swell fill the room, and let the band take you somewhere Richmond didn't know it needed to go.