By April 1987, the Grateful Dead were riding a wave few could have predicted. "In the Dark" was just months away from its July release, and the band that had spent the early '80s grinding through arena tours with uneven results was quietly reassembling itself into something vital again. Brent Mydland, now eight years into his tenure as keyboardist, had fully shed the "new guy" label and was pushing the band in harder, bluesier directions than Keith Godchaux ever had. Garcia looked healthier than he had in years following his diabetic coma scare the previous summer, and there was a palpable sense in the Dead community that something was clicking back into place. The spring '87 run through Southern California was part of that momentum, a stretch of shows where the band seemed genuinely energized and the crowds were growing younger and larger by the month. Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, nestled in the hills of Orange County south of Los Angeles, was one of those outdoor sheds that suited the Dead beautifully — warm California evenings, good sightlines, and an audience primed for the kind of long, wandering musical conversations the band trafficked in. It wasn't the mythological weight of a Winterland or a Red Rocks, but it had a friendly openness to it that the Dead's Southern California faithful knew well, and the band played the room with a relaxed confidence that comes from familiarity. From what survives in the database for this date, "West L.A.
Fadeaway" and "Sugaree" represent two very different sides of the Dead's personality. "West L.A. Fadeaway," the Garcia-Hunter ode to seedy urban drift, was a relative newcomer still finding its legs in the setlist, and Brent's organ gives it a greasy, funky undertow that makes every performance worth checking. "Sugaree," on the other hand, is one of the great vehicles for Garcia's guitar voice — a song that rewards patience, where the real magic tends to arrive midway through the instrumental stretches when Garcia is just singing through his strings, unhurried and conversational. A strong "Sugaree" is often the emotional center of any first set. The recording circulating from this show is worth tracking down if you're a fan of this transitional moment in the band's arc — right on the cusp of their unexpected commercial resurgence, loose and warm and full of the quiet confidence of a band that had survived its worst years and was starting to believe in itself again. Press play and let it run.