By the fall of 1987, the Grateful Dead were riding one of the more unlikely commercial resurgences in rock history. "Touch of Grey" had cracked the Top Ten that summer, *In the Dark* was selling in numbers the band had never approached before, and suddenly the arenas were fuller than ever with a new wave of fans mixing in alongside the devoted faithful. The lineup was Brent Mydland's band now in full stride — Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, Mickey Hart, and Brent anchoring the keys with a muscular, sometimes gospel-fired presence that gave the mid-to-late '80s Dead a distinctly different texture from the floating, exploratory sound of the Keith Godchaux years. There was more grit, more directness, and on a good night, more sheer volume of feeling. Madison Square Garden was about as high-profile a room as the Dead played, and by the late '80s they had made it something of a home base for their East Coast fans. There's a particular electricity to MSG Dead shows — the room is enormous and not always kind acoustically, but the crowd that packed it during these fall runs brought an intensity that the band fed off of. New York was always a city that pushed them a little harder. The songs we have from this show offer a nice cross-section of what September '87 sounded like.
"Crazy Fingers" is a Garcia gem from *Blues for Allah* — one of those songs that lives or dies on the delicacy of its chord changes and the warmth Jerry could conjure from the verses. "When Push Comes to Shove" is a Weir number that fit naturally into the '80s setlist, a rolling, bluesy workout that often found the band locked in a comfortable groove. Then there's the real anchor here: "Turn On Your Lovelight," the old Pigpen war horse that by this era had become Brent's showcase, and a thunderous one at that. Where Pigpen made it a slow simmer, Brent tended to turn it into something more overtly raw and churning. Closing with "Around & Around" is a classic Chuck Berry via Dead move — a crowd-rouser that rarely left energy on the floor. Recording quality for MSG shows from this era varies, but there are solid sources in circulation, and the room's size tends to come through clearly in the mix. If you've never spent time with fall '87, this is a fine place to start.