By the fall of 1985, the Grateful Dead were deep into one of their most underappreciated stretches — a mid-decade run that doesn't always get its due alongside the celebrated peaks of '72 or '77, but rewards patient listeners with a band that had genuinely grown into the arena era without losing its improvisational soul. Brent Mydland was five years into his tenure as keyboardist by this point, his muscular Hammond work and emotionally raw vocals fully integrated into the band's fabric. Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir were in solid form heading into the Halloween season, and this particular October run carried the electric edge that the Dead almost always seemed to summon as the year wound toward its close. The Fox Theater in Atlanta is one of those rooms that makes any concert feel like an event. A restored 1929 movie palace with Moorish Revival architecture, a twinkling artificial night sky on the ceiling, and acoustics that can make a band sound enormous or intimate depending on the moment, the Fox has long been regarded as one of the finest concert venues in the American South. The Dead played it periodically through the '80s, and its ornate grandeur gave their performances there a particular electricity — the sense of something slightly out of time, which suited the band perfectly. The handful of songs documented from this show sketch an intriguing picture.
"Bird Song" is one of the great vehicles for Jerry's lyrical soloing, a piece that opens into spacious, meditative territory when the band is locked in — listen for the way the guitar floats above Brent and Phil's low-end conversation. "The Wheel" moving directly into "Feel Like A Stranger" is a nicely charged pairing, the philosophical rumble of the former giving way to Weir's strutting new wave funk, which by '85 the band had polished into something rhythmically irresistible. "Hell in a Bucket" as an opener would have set a rowdy, celebratory tone — Brent's showcase song was a genuine crowd-pleaser by this era, a sly, raucous piece of rock and roll that always got the room moving. And closing on "Johnny B. Goode" signals a band that sent the crowd home sweaty and grinning. Details on the recording source for this show can vary, so check the lineage notes carefully — but whether you're listening to board or audience tape, the energy of a Halloween-adjacent show at the Fox should come through clearly. Put it on and let Atlanta 1985 work on you.