By December 1989, the Grateful Dead were operating as one of the most improbable success stories in American music — a band two and a half decades into their career, selling out arenas night after night with a devoted following that had only grown larger in the years since "Touch of Grey" cracked the mainstream in 1987. The lineup at this point was the classic late-period configuration: Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, and Brent Mydland, who had by now fully settled into his role as the band's keyboardist after a decade on the job. Brent's Hammond organ and synthesizers gave the Dead a harder, more muscular edge than the Keith Godchaux years, and the band was playing large rooms with a confidence born of long practice. The fall '89 tour found them in fine form, working through a period that serious fans tend to undervalue — the late-'80s arena Dead could genuinely cook when the stars aligned. The Great Western Forum in Inglewood had been a Los Angeles institution since the late 1960s, home to the Lakers and Kings and a regular stop for major touring acts. The Dead always drew well in Southern California, and the Forum's cavernous concrete bowl presented its acoustic challenges, but a locked-in Dead could turn that room into something special.
Los Angeles crowds brought their own energy to these shows, and late-year December dates often carried a sense of occasion — end-of-tour electricity with something to prove. What we have documented from this show is a fascinating fragment: "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" appearing in connection with the Drums segment, which suggests it may have emerged from the Space passage that typically followed the percussion showcase. Bob Dylan's haunting farewell song was a vehicle the Dead used periodically through their career, and when it surfaced in the right context — late in the second set, after the band had been in the wilderness of Drums and Space — it could arrive with an almost spiritual weight, Garcia's voice carrying the lyric's ache with the kind of weary conviction only years could bring. A well-placed "Baby Blue" is worth the price of admission on its own. The recording quality for this show isn't definitively established in this listing, so approach it as you would any late-'80s Forum source — potentially a solid audience tape from the era's dedicated taping community. Seek it out for that "Baby Blue" alone, and let whatever else the night offered wash over you.