By late 1989, the Grateful Dead were operating as one of the most improbable success stories in American music — a psychedelic institution pushing 25 years together and somehow filling arenas night after night with a dedicated audience that kept growing. Brent Mydland was firmly established as the band's keyboardist, having joined a decade earlier, and his soulful, bluesy sensibility had become essential to how the band sounded in this era. Jerry Garcia's guitar work carried a certain weathered expressiveness by this point, and the rhythm section of Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, and Mickey Hart gave the band a muscular, sometimes thunderous backbone. The late '80s Dead were a polished live act without having lost the improvisational nerve that made them worth following in the first place. The Great Western Forum in Inglewood, California — just outside Los Angeles — was one of the band's reliable Southern California haunts during the arena years. Home to the Lakers and the Kings, it was a proper big-room rock venue, and the Dead filled it comfortably in this era. LA crowds had their own energy, part devotion, part Hollywood cool, and shows at the Forum tended to bring out a certain West Coast looseness that suited the band well. Playing close to home territory — the Dead were, after all, Bay Area creatures at heart — often gave these runs a comfortable, slightly relaxed quality.
From what we have in the database for this night, two songs stand out as windows into the show. "Feel Like a Stranger," the Weir-penned opener that became a staple of late '80s sets, was the kind of piece that could range from perfunctory to genuinely electric depending on how deep the band was willing to dig into its nervous, propulsive groove. When it locks in, it really locks in — listen for the way the band stretches the intro and how Brent's organ weaves through the rhythm section's push. "Blow Away," one of Brent's own compositions, was an underappreciated gem of this era, full of the kind of raw emotional urgency that made his best moments so compelling. It's a song that reveals how much Brent brought to the band beyond just filling the keyboard chair. Recording quality for Forum shows from this period varies, but the venue's acoustics were generally workable, and strong sources circulate from this run. If you've been sleeping on the late '89 Dead, this is a solid entry point — cue it up and let Brent show you what you've been missing.