By the summer of 1992, the Grateful Dead were deep into what longtime fans often describe as a complicated but underappreciated stretch of their late career. Brent Mydland had been gone for two years, claimed far too soon in July of 1990, and Vince Welnick had settled into the keyboard chair alongside Bruce Hornsby — though by this point Hornsby had largely moved on, leaving Welnick as the sole keys man for most of 1992. The band was still drawing massive crowds and touring relentlessly, but there was a restlessness in the music, a searching quality that could produce genuine magic or frustrating inconsistency depending on the night. Garcia's voice and playing had weathered considerably since his 1986 diabetic coma, yet there remained moments when the old fire caught — when the room would suddenly feel like no time had passed at all. Richfield Coliseum, situated in the semi-rural stretch between Cleveland and Akron, was one of those mid-sized arena stops the Dead returned to throughout the late '80s and early '90s. The Coliseum had been home to NBA basketball and big rock tours for years, and it held the kind of reverberant, slightly cavernous sound that could either muddy a recording or give it a tremendous sense of scale. Midwest Dead crowds were famously devoted — Ohio fans had been showing up since the early days — and that loyalty gave these shows a warm, communal charge that comes through even on tape.
The two songs we have documented from this date make for an intriguing pairing. "Little Red Rooster," the old Howlin' Wolf blues that Pigpen used to own so completely, had evolved into something Garcia and the band could inhabit on their own terms by the '90s — a slow, greasy shuffle that gave Garcia room to stretch out with his most fluid, conversational phrasing. When it works, it's one of the most sensual things in the Dead's catalog. "Black Throated Wind" is a different kind of gem: a Bobby Weir rarity, co-written with John Barlow, that never got played nearly enough. Its winding, introspective melody and quietly mournful lyric reward close listening, and late-era versions often carry a bittersweet emotional weight that feels entirely appropriate for where the band found themselves in 1992. The recording circulates among collectors and is worth tracking down for anyone exploring the final years of the band's run. Put on your headphones, let the Rooster growl, and see where the night takes you.