Bruce Hornsby joined The Grateful Dead on grand piano for this whole concert. It appears to be the first time he’d played anything but accordion with the band in almost exactly three years (March 24, 1992). He would go on to play piano with them two more times, in late June 1995.
Hornsby prompts some exceptional collective playing in this show, with a second set that began with so much extended material that Drums > Space happened close to the end of the set.
The second set opener, “Scarlet Begonias,” was a mess, starting with major microphone problems for Garcia and never tightening up. However, once the jam arrives, huge momentum is built, which rolls through the next three songs.
The group’s excitement over “Fire on the Mountain” leads to one of the most exciting “Corrinas” I’ve heard. Everyone paints outside the lines in wild syncopation. The enthusiasm derails the song itself a little bit, but the song is almost beside the point, and the groove spills seamlessly into “Matilda” to continue for almost another ten minutes. (The Dead played “Matilda” only six times, all but once out of “Corrina.” Four of those performances happened within two weeks, this being the second one of those.)
The spirit of improvisation also produced two great, sustained pieces of music during “Space,” one fierce and one gentle.
In addition to the exciting jammy material, Hornsby was on hand to contribute to the best performance of “Unbroken Chain” (there were only 10) and very good versions of “Days Between” and “So Many Roads.”
- Cold Rain and Snow (6:49)
- Scarlet Jam > Fire on the Mountain > (18:48)
- Corrina > (14:04)
- Matilda > Hornsby/Drums Jam (9:39)
- Hornsby/Weir Jam > Jam (4:23)
- Space Jam > (5:52)
- Days Between (10:59)
- Unbroken Chain (6:22)
- Loser (7:07)
- So Many Roads (7:24)