By the spring of 1986, the Grateful Dead had settled into a particular groove that was equal parts reassuring and electrifying. Brent Mydland, now six years into his tenure as the band's keyboardist, had fully shed any sense of being the new guy — his Hammond B3 and synths had become an indispensable color in the band's palette, adding a muscular, sometimes gospel-drenched weight to the sound. Jerry Garcia was healthy enough at this point to be engaged and inventive, and the band was riding a wave of renewed arena-level popularity, drawing bigger and more devoted crowds than ever before. This was the Dead in their mid-eighties prime: polished but still capable of genuine surprise, professional without being predictable. The Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland, Maine is a mid-sized arena that hosted the Dead several times during their northeastern touring cycles. It's not a mythic room in the way that Cornell's Barton Hall or Radio City might be, but that's almost beside the point — the Dead had a way of making wherever they landed feel like the center of the universe on any given night. Portland crowds tended to be enthusiastic and loyal, and the relatively intimate scale of the Civic Center compared to the larger sheds and arenas the band was playing meant that the energy could be focused and real. The songs we have documented from this show offer a tantalizing glimpse into what must have been a strong second set.
"Around and Around," Chuck Berry's jubilant rocker, was a reliable crowd igniter when the Dead chose to deploy it, and a segue out of it — marked here with that telltale arrow — suggests the band was thinking in longer arcs rather than discrete song-sized chunks. Flowing into "Dear Mr. Fantasy," the Traffic classic that had become a beloved showcase for Brent's vocals, this stretch would have given the band room to stretch and emote. The journey through "Space" into "Never Trust a Woman," one of Brent's funkier originals, points to a set that had real momentum and gave the keyboardist a meaningful role in shaping its arc. Listeners should pay particular attention to how the band navigates those transitions — the way "Around and Around" dissolves and regroups is a small lesson in collective improvisation. The recording quality circulating from this show is generally considered listenable, making it accessible rather than frustrating. For fans curious about the mid-eighties Dead at their most road-tested and unselfconscious, this one's worth your evening.