By April 1993, the Grateful Dead were deep into what would prove to be their final full decade of touring, carrying forward with the lineup that had stabilized after Brent Mydland's devastating loss in 1990. Vince Welnick had settled into the keyboards chair, and Bruce Hornsby — though no longer a full-time member by this point — had been phasing out his regular role over the preceding year, leaving Welnick as the sole keyboardist. The band's sound in this period carried the weight of decades alongside a genuine effort to push forward, and spring tours like this one found the Dead working through a broad repertoire with the kind of loose, exploratory energy that Long Island crowds had come to expect from them. Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum was practically a second home for the Grateful Dead by the early '90s. Located in Uniondale on Long Island, the Nassau Coliseum drew enormous tri-state area audiences — New York City Deadheads who couldn't always score Madison Square Garden tickets, Jersey contingents making the trek, and a fiercely loyal local scene that treated every Nassau run like a homecoming. The room had its acoustic quirks, as arena shows often do, but the energy the crowd brought to this building was consistently electric, and the band responded to it. The one song we have confirmed from this date is Samson & Delilah, the traditional spiritual that Garcia and the band transformed into one of their great roaring set-openers.
Built on a pounding, almost militaristic groove, Samson is the kind of song that announces itself — Bobby out front with that declarative vocal, the band locked in behind him like a freight train finding its rails. When it lands right, there's a communal thunder to it that can lift an arena off its foundation. A well-executed Samson tells you immediately what kind of night you're in for, and in the early '90s the band was still capable of delivering performances with genuine authority. Listeners coming to this recording should pay attention to how the band holds the rhythm on Samson — the interplay between Mickey and Bill underneath Welnick's organ swells can be hypnotic when the ensemble is clicking. Whether this circulates as a soundboard or an audience tape will shape your experience significantly; if you're working from an audience source, the crowd noise itself becomes part of the texture. Either way, if you're mapping the contours of the '93 spring tour, this Nassau show deserves a spot in your listening queue.