By the spring of 1986, the Grateful Dead were in a quietly confident stride. Brent Mydland had long since settled into the keyboard chair, his soulful voice and bluesy Hammond work fusing seamlessly with the Garcia-Weir front line. The band was riding momentum from a prolific touring schedule and putting the finishing touches on what would become *In the Dark*, the surprise commercial breakthrough that was still over a year away — but whose new material was already making appearances on stage. This Philadelphia date at The Spectrum catches the band in that in-between glow: still a touring cult phenomenon, but about to become something much larger than that. The Spectrum was one of the Dead's dependable mid-Atlantic anchors, a big hockey and basketball barn that seated tens of thousands and, by the mid-eighties, had seen its share of memorable Dead nights. Philadelphia crowds were famously rabid — loud, well-seasoned fans who knew the catalog and weren't shy about letting the band know what they wanted. The room's cavernous acoustics could be unforgiving, but on a good night the energy in a full Spectrum had a physical quality to it. The song selection here is especially interesting to parse.
Both "Touch of Grey" and "Throwing Stones" appear — two songs that would anchor *In the Dark* and were still relatively fresh in the rotation, the band road-testing them in front of crowds who were hearing them develop in real time. There's something thrilling about catching these songs before they became radio staples. "Feel Like A Stranger" shows up twice in the database, which suggests either a bustling second set or a fragment split across sources — either way, Brent's churning, disco-tinged opener always set a kinetic tone when it led off a set. "Scarlet Begonias" in the mid-eighties still crackled with that Weir rhythm-guitar inventiveness that made it a reliable setup piece, and the presence of "Turn On Your Lovelight" is a nice nod to the Pigpen tradition, kept alive years after his passing as a crowd-igniting blowout number. Closing on "Don't Ease Me In" gives the night a satisfying old-school bookend. The recording quality for this show is worth checking on before you dive in — mid-eighties Spectrum recordings vary considerably between audience tapes and soundboard sources, so consult the archive notes for whichever version you pull. But the setlist alone is reason enough to seek this one out. Press play and hear a band on the cusp of an unlikely second act, playing with purpose.