By December 1986, the Grateful Dead were deep into their arena-rock middle age — a band that had survived the wilderness years of the early '80s and come roaring back with *In the Dark* just around the corner (it would arrive in 1987, their commercial breakthrough). Brent Mydland had been the man behind the keys for several years now, his soulful, slightly blue-eyed soul voice adding a different emotional texture than anything Keith Godchaux had brought. Garcia was in a complicated place personally, but onstage the band had settled into a muscular, high-energy sound built for large rooms. And few rooms were larger, or more familiar, than the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. The Coliseum was essentially the Dead's home turf in this era — a massive, characterless concrete bowl that the band somehow managed to fill with warmth through sheer force of community. Oakland crowds knew the material cold and showed up ready, and there was always something comfortable and confident about the band playing in their own backyard. The December 1986 run at this venue was part of a strong holiday-season West Coast stretch, the kind of year-end homecoming that had become a Dead tradition, with loyal Bay Area fans crowding in from across the region to close out another year with their band.
Of the songs we have documented from this night, "Box of Rain" is the one that demands attention. Phil Lesh's tender, searching contribution to the Dead's songbook, written for his ailing father, it has always functioned as something of an emotional anchor — a song about mortality and acceptance wrapped in a deceptively gentle folk-rock arrangement. When it lands right, particularly in this era with the full band locked in, it can bring a whole arena to a hush. "Drums" meanwhile was by this point an expansive, somewhat theatrical percussion interlude, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann given the run of the stage while the rest of the band stepped back — a communal ritual that divided casual listeners and delighted committed fans equally. Listeners digging into this recording should pay attention to the textural richness of Brent's playing against Garcia's guitar lines in the quieter moments, and to the crowd energy as it builds back up after "Drums." The recording sources for Oakland Coliseum shows from this period vary, but circulating versions tend to be reasonably listenable, capturing enough of the room's big sound to give you a feel for what it was like to be there. This one's worth a spin.