By the summer of 1987, the Grateful Dead were riding one of the most improbable commercial surges of their career. "Touch of Grey" was weeks away from cracking the mainstream in a way that would transform the band's audience forever, and there was an electric, slightly restless charge running through the touring year — the sense that something was shifting. Brent Mydland, now well into his eighth year with the band, had grown from uncertain newcomer into a full co-pilot, his muscular Hammond work and raw vocal delivery giving the '87 sound a blues-soaked urgency that balanced Garcia's increasingly mellow, meditative leads. This was a band that knew how to play arenas, and they were doing it with a confidence that bordered on swagger. The Greek Theatre at UC Berkeley is one of those rooms that feels purpose-built for the Dead. An open-air amphitheater carved into the Berkeley Hills, it sits just a few miles from where this band was born, and the crowd always carries the particular knowing energy of Bay Area faithful — people who grew up going to Winterland and the Fillmore, who feel like they have a proprietary relationship with this music. The sight lines are gorgeous, the acoustics are warm, and on a June evening in Northern California, with the eucalyptus and the coastal air, there are few better places on earth to watch a rock and roll band.
The Dead played the Greek regularly across the decades, and it always brought out something relaxed and celebratory in their performances. The fragments we have documented from this show point toward a strong, crowd-pleasing late-set stretch. "Goin' Down the Road Feeling Bad" is a Dead perennial rooted in the old jug band and folk tradition — when the band locks into its rolling momentum, it becomes a communal sing-along that can carry an entire room. The segue out of it (that telltale arrow suggesting a run directly into the next number) hints at a set that was still cooking when the transition happened. And then there's "Turn On Your Lovelight," the big Pigpen war horse that the band had reclaimed as a Brent showcase by this era — an extended, call-and-response burner that tends to close sets on a wave of pure jubilation. When Brent gets hold of it in this period, it can go anywhere. If you're sitting on the fence about whether to pull up this one, let the promise of a crowd roaring back at Brent in a warm Berkeley night make up your mind.