The Fifth Annual Meet-Up at the Movies – Grateful Dead Alpine Valley 1989

Although it probably wasn’t intended as such, The Fifth Annual Grateful Dead Meet Up at the Movies on May 4 served as a dry run for the theatrical streaming of the Fare Thee Well shows scheduled for late June and July Fourth weekend. Though those performances will no doubt carry much more of an emotional overlay, this previously unseen concert video of the iconic band’s stop at Alpine Valley on July 19 1989 had its share of poignant moments.

And not surprisingly, most of them came when Jerry Garcia was fronting the band. As obvious right from the start on “Sugaree,” Garcia had energy to spare, his singing full of nuance, his precise guitar playing reminding none of his peers had a finer edge in their playing, his notes the essence of bittersweet as much as his singing a combination of friendliness and vulnerability.

Alternating tunes as was customary at this juncture in their career, Garcia and Bob Weir not only maintained, but nurtured, an almost imperceptible momentum over the course of three hours the band moved through a wide range of material from their entire history: “Foolish Heart” back to “Morning Dew,” with the show’s centerpiece a majestic “Terrapin Station” made all the more so by a segue into “The Other One” then “The Wheel,” passages more evocative than the purely instrumental interval preceding. On this date (and on the previously-released Philadelphia show from the summer tour), the group is clearly still in the afterglow of the titular front man’s return to comparatively good health after his brush with death in 1986 and their unforeseen 1987 hit “Touch of Grey,” conspicuously, but surprisingly, absent from the set list.

Garcia was fairly animated too, his body language, frequent smiles around the stage and almost shy hand-gestures indicative of a man happy to be in the space he’s in. The rest of the band followed suit, too drummers Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart gleefully interacting with a complementary intricacy lost early in that decade, while the Brent Mydland, who would pass the very next year, demonstrated gusto and engagement on both keyboards and vocals, offsetting bassist Phil Lesh’s mostly stoic demeanor at the other side of the stage (except when yukking it up after singing “Box of Rain” to open the second set).

Weir kept himself in check throughout, resisting the temptation to over emote on “Looks Like Rain” or the encore “Turn On Your Lovelight.” and instead adopting a somewhat reserved manner, which aided in his delivery of “Victim or the Crime,” “Hell in a Bucket” and especially on his somewhat tongue in cheek reading of Bob Dylan’s “Desolation Row.” It’s debatable there were too many closeups of the rhythm guitarist, whether singing lead or offering careful contributions to the jams, and that more such shots of Lesh at work, or the percussionists in motion, might’ve been preferable. Perfectly lit head-shots of Garcia as he sang were stately portraits of the man, heartrendingly captured and held.

Yet in director Len Dell’Amico’s cut (and archivist David Lemieux’ prep of the film) there were precious few long-distance shots of Candace Brightman’s light show, more of which might’ve been featured during “Drums” and “Space” as a darkened stage left the cameramen clearly at a loss at a couple points (thankfully no kitschy psychedelia though). But while the regular rounds of applause that echoed through the sparsely filled Burlington Vermont movie house (and second one serving beer no doubt more densely populated) were at first surprising, the acclamation made sense particularly when crowd noise that had been kept at a minimum rose in volume as the credits rolled.

If the broadcast of the upcoming Fare Thee Well shows through Fathom Events, the nationwide distributor, is comparably smooth on a technical level—and theater management takes some time to adjust house sound a little bit in addition to offering amenities for the Fourth holiday as this Vermont venue is doing—it may seem as this Meet Up at the Movies did by the time it was over, that the music, like the best Grateful Dead concerts, is just part of the overall experience and a joyously moving one at that.