On June 19, 1987, MTV premiered the amazing music video for the Grateful Dead anthem “Touch Of Grey.” Less than a month later, the song was released on the Dead’s first studio album in seven years, In The Dark, and became the band’s only Top 40 hit and even cracked the Billboard Hot 100 Top 10, peaking at No. 9. “Touch Of Grey” achieved No. 1 status on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, which ranks the most-played songs on mainstream rock radio stations in the U.S.
While “Touch Of Grey” and its MTV friendly video helped introduce the Grateful Dead to a whole new generation of fans, the band had been playing the Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter composition for five years before it was released. The band debuted “Touch Of Grey” on this date in 1982 at the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland.
The Landover ‘82 show got underway with a rare “Playing In The Band” opener. GD only opened with “Playin” seven times, twice in ‘72, three times in ‘82 and twice in ‘86. Another unusual placement in a rare first set “Crazy Fingers” followed. The Blues For Allah cut had not appeared in a first set since September 30, 1976.
The band — guitarists Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir, bassist Phil Lesh, drummers Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart and keyboardist Brent Mydland — also weaved in and out of a “Playing In The Band Jam” for most of the first set and into the second. The “Playing In the Band Jam” bookended “Little Red Rooster,” “Dupree’s Diamond Blues,” “Beat It On Down The Line” and “It Must Have Been The Roses.” The first set came to a close with “Let It Grow” and the ‘80s Dead tune “Keep Your Day Job.”
The second set was a pretty typical mid-career affair on paper but extremely well-executed, kicking off with a 13-minute “Shakedown Street” which led into another “Playing In The Band Jam.” The rest of the second frame included the “Lost Sailor”/”Saint Of Circumstance” pairing, “Drums,” “Space,” “Not Fade Away,” “Stella Blue” and a “Good Lovin” closer.
Then came the premiere performance of “Touch Of Grey” for the encore. The openeing of the song sounds a little bit like “Bertha” and the crowd cheers seemingly for what would have been just the second encore placement for the classic opener (the one and only time “Bertha” appeared in an encore was on August 5, 1979 in Oakland).
Jerry, however, jumps into “Touch Of Grey,” which carried its peppy tempo but with a slightly different beat, more syncopated perhaps. What is fairly fleshed out is Garcia’s masterful play with the song’s melody during his solo. But even more interesting is how the audience seems to come around to the new tune in the course of the song with applause surging in on the latter choruses — the now iconic “We will get by/We will survive.”
Listen to the complete show, via Charlie Miller, including the “Touch Of Grey” debut below:
Setlist (via JerryBase)
Set 1: Playing In The Band > Crazy Fingers [1] > Playing In The Band Jam [2] > Little Red Rooster , Dupree’s Diamond Blues , Beat It On Down The Line , It Must Have Been The Roses > Playing In The Band Jam [2] > Let It Grow > Day Job [2]
Set 2: Shakedown Street > Playing In The Band Jam > Lost Sailor > Saint Of Circumstance > Drums > Space > Not Fade Away > Stella Blue > Around And Around > Good Lovin’
Encore: Touch Of Grey [3]
Notes:
- [1] Last known performance (by GD) in Set 1 1976-09-30 (443 events ago)
- [2] First performance (by GD) in Set 1
- [3] First performance