By the summer of 1991, the Grateful Dead were deep into what would prove to be the final chapter of their long run — grinding through the arena circuit with Vince Welnick having settled in behind the keyboards following Brent Mydland's devastating death the previous July. Welnick brought a bright, earnest energy to the band, and while he was still finding his footing in the deeper recesses of the catalog, the Dead had recalibrated and were playing with a renewed sense of purpose. Jerry Garcia's guitar work this year could swing between luminous and labored, and the whole band carried the particular weight of recent loss alongside the determination to keep the music alive. The summer '91 tour was a large-scale arena run, exactly the kind of high-decibel, high-attendance circuit the Dead had been navigating since the mid-eighties. Charlotte Coliseum — the original one, a hulking round arena that opened in 1988 — was part of that new generation of purpose-built NBA venues the Dead found themselves filling night after night. The room seated close to 24,000 and had the kind of cavernous, live acoustics that could either reward or punish a band depending on how locked in they were. Charlotte and the Carolinas had developed a healthy regional Dead scene by this point, and the crowds that turned out at the Coliseum were knowledgeable and enthusiastic even in a room that size. The one song we have confirmed from this night is West L.A.
Fadeaway, Robert Hunter's sleek, slightly sinister piece of Los Angeles noir that fit comfortably into the second set or as a late first-set mover. It's a song that rewards a band firing on all cylinders — the groove has to be right, with Garcia's lead cutting through like a blade and the rhythm section keeping things funky without losing the song's understated menace. When Welnick and Garcia locked in on this one, it could sound genuinely cool and unhurried. Versions that stretch out even slightly in the instrumental passages tend to be the ones fans return to. Recording information for this show is limited in our current database, but audience tapes from the 1991 summer tour range widely in quality depending on the taper and source. If a clean board or matrix circulates for this date, it's worth hunting down — the era deserves more careful listening than it sometimes gets. Pull this one up and let Charlotte 1991 make its case.