By the spring of 1987, the Grateful Dead were riding an unexpected second wind. "In the Dark" was still a year away from its August release, but the band was deep in the creative momentum that would produce it, and their live shows reflected a group that had found its footing in the arena era without losing the exploratory instincts that defined them. Brent Mydland, now eight years into his tenure as keyboardist, had fully shed the newcomer label — his soulful bark and gospel-inflected playing gave the band a muscular, R&B-leaning center that complemented Jerry Garcia's increasingly lyrical guitar work. The spring '87 tour was a vigorous one, and the band was playing with a confidence and looseness that rewarded patient listeners. Laguna Seca Recreation Area, tucked into the rolling hills of the Monterey Peninsula southeast of Carmel, brought a distinctly California flavor to the Dead experience. The site, better known in motorsport circles as WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, hosted the Dead for several outdoor festival-style shows over the years, and the natural amphitheater quality of the landscape lent these performances an airy, expansive feel. There's something about outdoor California shows of this era — the coastal light, the laid-back crowd energy, the sense that the music could just keep going — that gave certain performances a particular glow, and Laguna Seca had that in abundance.
The fragments we have from this show — the Space segment and the closing Iko Iko — are a genuinely evocative pairing. Space, the band's freeform collective improvisation that anchored the second-set center, was a nightly adventure in 1987, with Brent's synthesizers adding eerie textural layers that pushed Garcia and Bob Weir into unexpected sonic corners. What emerges from a great Space is a sense of the band as a single organism feeling its way through the dark. That it flows directly into Iko Iko is a treat: the New Orleans traditional, a Dead staple since the Pigpen days, always functioned as a release valve — joyful, rhythmic, communal. Hearing the crowd come alive as the groove kicks in after the weightlessness of Space is one of those quintessential Dead moments that reminds you why people kept coming back. Recording information for this show can vary by source, so check the notes on your preferred archive for specifics — but even a decent audience tape from an outdoor Laguna Seca show tends to capture something of the surrounding air. Press play and let it in.