By the fall of 1987, the Grateful Dead were riding an unlikely commercial and cultural wave. "In the Dark" had dropped that summer, their first studio album in seven years, and "Touch of Grey" was actually getting MTV rotation — a surreal development for a band that had spent two decades as the ultimate anti-mainstream institution. The arena crowds were bigger than ever, full of new faces alongside the faithful, and the band was navigating that tension with characteristic grace. Brent Mydland, now eight years into his tenure as keyboardist, had grown into the role completely — his gospel-inflected organ work and muscular piano playing gave the '87 sound a hard-driving quality that set it apart from the more ethereal Keith Godchaux years. Garcia's voice was holding up, his guitar tone warm and searching, and the rhythm section of Lesh, Weir, Hart, and Kreutzmann remained one of the most telepathic in rock. The Providence Civic Center was a reliable mid-size arena stop on the northeastern circuit, the kind of room that reliably drew a passionate New England crowd — fans who had grown up on this music and weren't shy about letting the band know when things were cooking.
Providence wasn't a headline destination on the level of Madison Square Garden or the Meadowlands, but that could work in a show's favor; there was something about those slightly-under-the-radar Northeast dates that could produce genuinely loose, exploratory performances. What we have documented from this particular night is a "Franklin's Tower," and that alone is reason to seek out the recording. One of the great Garcia-Hunter compositions from 1975's "Blues for Allah," Franklin's Tower is a song that lives or dies on momentum and that indefinable quality the Dead called "lift." When it clicks — when Garcia's leads start to cascade and the rhythm section locks into that rolling groove — it can feel like the whole room is levitating. In the late '80s context, with Brent's keyboards adding a fuller harmonic floor beneath the melody, the song had taken on a slightly different character than its mid-'70s incarnations, more assured and sonically dense. Whether this version crests into one of those truly transcendent readings is exactly the kind of question that makes listening worth your time. The recording quality for many '87 shows varies widely depending on the source, so check the notes for your preferred version — but whatever you're spinning, let that Franklin's Tower wash over you and see where it takes you.