Dead & Company - Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, CA 7/7/18 (Live) (2019) [Hi-Res]

You just can’t beat a beautiful summer night at a major league ballpark – and that holds true whether you’re there to cheer on your favorite baseball team or celebrate that other great American pastime, the music of the Grateful Dead.

And so it was on July 7th, 2018, when the all-star team known as Dead & Company came to Los Angeles to play at Dodger Stadium. Considered the state of the ballpark art when it opened in 1962, it is now, hard as it may be to believe, the third oldest venue in the Majors, after the far more ancient Fenway Park in Boston and Wrigley Field in Chicago (both of them, by the way, also visited by Dead & Company in previous tours). But despite its senior status, Dodger Stadium is still widely regarded as one of the very best places in the country to enjoy a ballgame. Or, as it turned out, a Dead & Company show.

But in the days leading up to the performance, there was some apprehension that the band and audience were in for something of an ordeal, due to a brutal heatwave that had gripped the L.A. area, with temperatures in the city climbing as high as 110 degrees. It was still around 104 on the morning of the show, but as evening drew near, the weather deities turned benign, dropping the temperature below 100 for the first time in days at almost the exact moment that the gates to the stadium opened, and continuing that downward trend into the high 80s by showtime. The relative coolness was at once a relief and a source of energy, with the band indicating its willingness to take the crowd on quite a ride by opening things up with “Playing In The Band” – and the audience, by its response, indicating that it was ready to follow every step of the way. The energy continues through a first set filled with favorites, including “Bertha,” “Jack Straw,” “Peggy-O,” a spectacular “Cumberland Blues” and a hard-charging “Deal” to close out the first half.

Things pick right back up after intermission with the sure-fire opening licks of “Sugar Magnolia,” and the momentum continues unabated with the “Scarlet Begonias>Fire On The Mountain” combo. “Althea” and “Eyes Of The World” keep things airborne right into an especially exotic Drums sequence followed by an ethereal Space excursion, which in turn unfolds into an exquisite “Stella Blue.” The “Sunshine Daydream” coda to “Sugar Magnolia” provides a perfect and rousing bookend to the set, with a tender “Brokedown Palace” setting the stage for the upbeat second-encore surprise of “Not Fade Away,” to end the evening on an especially joyous and satisfying note.