By the summer of 1986, the Grateful Dead had settled into the muscular, arena-tested sound that defined their mid-decade run. Brent Mydland was well into his seventh year with the band, his gospel-inflected keyboards and soulful voice having long since become indispensable to the group's identity. Jerry Garcia was playing with a kind of focused authority that characterized his work in '86 — leaner than the sprawling explorations of the late '70s, but still full of fire when the moment called for it. The year would end in tragedy with Garcia's diabetic coma that August, making these summer shows a bittersweet chapter in retrospect — a band near the height of its mid-'80s commercial appeal, drawing ever-larger crowds, not yet aware of the storm on the horizon. The Rubber Bowl on the campus of the University of Akron isn't the kind of room that shows up in the mythology — it's no Red Rocks, no Frost, no Hampton. But that's part of its charm. A utilitarian outdoor stadium in the heart of northeastern Ohio, it represents the Dead's ability to turn any setting into a happening. The industrial Midwest welcomed the band warmly, and there's often something loose and celebratory about shows in these less-storied venues — less weight of legend, more room to just play.
The fragments we have from this show give a tantalizing cross-section of what was on the menu that night. "Truckin'" flowing directly into "Alabama Getaway" suggests a first set with some real momentum — a transition that keeps the dance floor churning. "Alabama Getaway" in 1986 was reliably tight, a rhythm-forward Garcia workout that Brent's keyboards give a nice sheen to. The appearance of "Me & My Uncle" as a standalone or set-ender is classic Dead economy — John Phillips' cowboy number done up with that irresistible lope the band had been perfecting since the early '70s. And "Drums," of course, marks the ritual center of the second set, the moment when Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann hold the whole sprawling thing together in their own percussive cosmos before the band reassembles on the other side. Recording information for this date is limited, so your mileage may vary depending on the source in circulation — but even a solid audience tape from an outdoor show in the '86 summer run has its own magic, the Akron crowd noise mixing with that unmistakable mid-'80s Dead sound. If you've never spent time with this era, this is a good place to start.