By the spring of 1988, the Grateful Dead were deep into one of their most commercially successful and musically complex periods, riding the momentum of *In the Dark* and its surprise MTV hit "Touch of Grey." Brent Mydland had by now fully settled into the keyboard chair he'd occupied since 1979, and his muscular Hammond style gave the band a harder, bluesier edge than the Keith Godchaux years. Jerry Garcia's playing in this era carried a kind of weathered authority — not always the fleet, exploratory runs of 1977, but something heavier and more deliberate, capable of devastating emotional impact when he locked in. The spring '88 tour found the band in strong form, playing to increasingly large crowds while still capable of genuine improvisational surprises on any given night. Hampton Coliseum occupies a place of near-mythic reverence among Deadheads, and with good reason. The round, acoustically peculiar arena in southeastern Virginia became one of the band's favorite rooms through the 1980s and beyond, consistently generating some of the most electrically charged performances of that decade. Deadheads from up and down the East Coast would pilgrimage to Hampton knowing the band tended to rise to the occasion there — there's a looseness and intensity to Hampton shows that runs through the tapes like a current.
The fragments we have from this March 26 date offer a compelling cross-section of what made a late-eighties Dead show work. "The Wheel" rolling into Spencer Davis's "Gimme Some Lovin'" is a pairing that captures the band's willingness to blur the line between their own mythology and their roots in good-time rock and roll — Brent's Hammond absolutely lives for a moment like that. "China Cat Sunflower" without its "I Know You Rider" partner is a rarer find, suggesting the band was threading it into the setlist in an unconventional way, and it's always worth hearing how Garcia's guitar handles those cascading runs in this heavier era. "Black Peter," one of Garcia and Hunter's most quietly devastating songs, following "Drums" is a striking placement — the space and silence that opens up after the percussion section makes "Black Peter" hit with particular weight, Garcia's voice carrying the weight of the song's mortality theme into the Coliseum rafters. The recording circulates in solid quality, and whether you're coming to this one fresh or revisiting a Hampton show you half-remember, there's plenty here to reward close listening. Put the headphones on and let the Wheel spin.