By the summer of 1985, the Grateful Dead were deep into the mid-decade arena era — a band that had survived punk, disco, and new wave to find itself improbably thriving on stadium-sized stages with a devoted following that just kept growing. Brent Mydland, now six years into his tenure as keyboardist, had fully shed any newcomer awkwardness and was a muscular, soulful presence in the band, trading blows with Garcia and pushing the rhythm section in ways that gave this era its particular punch. Jerry was still in reasonable form before the health troubles that would shadow the latter half of the decade, and the Dead's 1985 touring had a loosened, confident feel — a band that knew its audience and was willing to swing. River Bend Music Center, an outdoor amphitheater sitting along the Ohio River just northeast of Cincinnati, was a relatively new facility at this point, having opened in the early 1980s as part of a wave of shed-style venues that became the backbone of the Dead's touring circuit. It's the kind of room that rewards a warm summer night — open air, crowd sprawling back onto the lawn, that particular mid-America energy that Dead audiences in the Midwest always seemed to carry with enthusiasm. Cincinnati and the surrounding region had been reliably strong Dead territory for years, and a June night on the river would have set a fine stage. From this show we have two songs in the database, and they're an interesting pair.
Iko Iko, the New Orleans street song the Dead had been playing since the early seventies, was a perennial crowd-pleaser — deceptively simple, built on that rolling, syncopated groove that gave Weir and the drummers room to lock in and let the whole thing breathe. A great version of Iko Iko has a lightness to it, almost a trance, and it's worth tuning in to hear how Garcia's guitar coils around the rhythm in the verses. Good Lovin', meanwhile, was the band's go-to energy detonator — a second-set staple that could expand dramatically, Weir tearing into the vocal while the band surged underneath. When this one took off, it took off hard, and Brent's Hammond-style runs added real fire in this era. If you've got access to a clean audience tape or a matrix of this show, settle in for the way these two songs capture different sides of what made mid-eighties Dead worth showing up for. Press play and let the river roll.