Grateful Dead - Live at Knickerbocker Arena, WPYX FM Broadcast, 26th March 1990 (2024)

Grateful Dead, live from Knickerbocker Arena, Albany NY, 26th March 1990.

In March 1990, the Grateful Dead opened a six-city, 16-show tour which would culminate in the release of the 18CD box Set Spring. The box set was limited to only 9,000 copies and featured six complete concerts. This performance broadcast by WPYX 106.5 FM features the concert at The Knickerbocker Arena, Albany New York on March 26th 1990. The set list covers the Dead's lifetime to that point, from "Morning Dew" on their 1967 debut LP to "Picasso Moon" from 1989's Built to Last. Singer-guitarist Bob Weir remembers it as "the high point of that era." Speaking of the album in 2012 Weir said, "For my money, this was our hottest era. We couldn't wait to go on tour; we couldn't wait to play because it was really working for us and it was keeping us amused. We had been working together as a unit for a good length of time.... We got comfortable enough in those tunes so that we could do a little exploration, harmonically, rhythmically, whatever. We could go places with them. Everybody has to be way in tune with each other to be able to do that". The following July, keyboard player Brent Mydland suffered a fatal drug overdose and in August 1995, lead guitarist Jerry Garcia died of a heart attack, effectively ending the band.