Road Trips, Vol. 3 No. 4: 5/6/80 (Penn State University, State College, PA) & 5/7/80 (Cornell University, Ithaca, NY)

The two consecutive shows from May 1980 documented here make it clear that The Grateful Dead were still being borne aloft on the fresh gust of wind provided by keyboardist Brent Mydland's 1979 arrival—and also that Mydland had become an integral part of their sound by that point. And while it doesn't hurt that the fidelity of the recording is among the finest in the Road Trips series, the band were simply hitting the kind of sweet spot in their concert continuum that kept the faithful following them across America for decades. Go to Heaven had just come out, and the presence of "Alabama Getaway" and "Don't Ease Me In" on rock radio gave the Dead a renewed public profile, but those tunes don’t turn up here; in terms of then-new material, it's the easy-rolling "Althea" and the fluid, jazzy "Lost Sailor" that stand out, as the band's whirling carousel of cross-rhythms strikes just the right balance of openness and intention. And from the ominous "Loser" to the boisterous "Bertha," Jerry Garcia invests enough emotion into both his pick and his pipes to make your speakers shudder.