By the fall of 1989, the Grateful Dead were deep into one of the most complicated chapters of their long career. Brent Mydland had been holding down the keyboards chair since 1979, and his bluesy, full-throated contributions had become central to the band's identity — his organ swells and gospel-tinged harmonies giving the sound a muscular warmth that stood apart from the Keith Godchaux years. The band had released Built to Last just days before this Meadowlands run, and Garcia's playing during this period carried the focused, purposeful quality that seemed to emerge when he was engaged with new material. The fall 1989 tour found the Dead playing to some of the largest, most devoted audiences of their career, the lot scene expanding by the year, the whole phenomenon gathering a momentum that was as thrilling as it was sometimes unwieldy. The Meadowlands Arena — technically in East Rutherford, New Jersey, just across the Hudson from Manhattan — was a quintessential late-era Dead cathedral. Enormous, loud, and packed with the passionate East Coast faithful, the arena could be a challenging room acoustically, but when the band locked in, that crowd energy was transformative. New York area shows drew some of the most intense Deadheads on the circuit, and you can often hear it: a crowd that knows every move, every pause, every signal that something special is about to unfold.
The two songs we have confirmed from this date are a study in contrasts and tradition. "Don't Ease Me In" is one of the oldest warhorses in the Dead's repertoire, a jug band-era relic that the band had been playing since the Pigpen days, typically deployed as a set-closer or encore with a loose, celebratory feel. It's the kind of number that lets the band stretch out and grin, a reminder of their roots even as everything around them had grown massive. Then there's "China Cat Sunflower," the beloved psychedelic opener that almost always segued into "I Know You Rider" — the "China>Rider" pairing being one of the true pillars of Dead setlist tradition. By 1989, Garcia had been playing this song for over two decades, and hearing how it had settled into his hands, the melodic runs more fluid and intuitive than ever, is one of the quiet pleasures of digging through shows from this era. Whatever the source on this one, it's a window into a band playing big rooms with years of road wisdom behind them. Queue it up and let the China Cat riff carry you in.