By the spring of 1992, the Grateful Dead were deep into the final chapter of their story, though few could have known it at the time. Brent Mydland had been gone for nearly two years, taken far too soon in the summer of 1990, and Vince Welnick had settled into the keyboard chair alongside the returning Bruce Hornsby, who was still contributing his distinctive piano voice to the band's sound during this period — though Hornsby's involvement was winding down as he returned to his solo career. The band was touring steadily in support of what would prove to be their last studio album of new material, and while the early '90s sometimes gets overlooked in favor of the peaks of '72 or '77, there were still extraordinary nights to be found if you were in the right room at the right time. Hampton Coliseum is very much the right room. Known affectionately in Dead circles as "the arena rock mothership" for its distinctively rounded, UFO-like architecture, Hampton has been one of the band's most beloved East Coast venues for decades. The acoustics in the Coliseum have always suited the Dead's long improvisational excursions surprisingly well for a mid-sized arena, and the Hampton faithful have always brought a ferocious energy that the band tended to meet and raise. There's a reason "Hampton comes alive" became a refrain among tapers and traders — the Dead repeatedly rose to the occasion here, delivering some of their most inspired playing to a crowd that demanded nothing less.
What we have catalogued from this show is Space, the free-form improvisational passage that the Dead typically deployed in the second set between the drums feature and the return to composed songs. Space is the place where the band shed every last pretense of structure and dove headlong into pure sonic exploration — Garcia's lead guitar hovering and probing, Lesh finding unexpected harmonic pockets, Welnick and the percussionists coloring the edges of something that defies easy description. In the early '90s, Space could range from gentle and meditative to genuinely unsettling, and it remains one of the most polarizing and fascinating corners of the Dead's catalog. A great Space rewards patience and rewards headphones. Tapes from Hampton Coliseum tend to circulate in solid quality, with the room's shape lending itself to clean audience recordings and several strong soundboard sources from various runs. Whatever you're working with here, put on something comfortable, turn it up, and let it take you somewhere.