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"On March 14th, 1990, the Grateful Dead opened a six-city, 16-show tour at the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland. Singer-guitarist Bob Weir remembers that sprint as &amp;quot;the high point of that era.&amp;quot; The following July, keyboard player Brent Mydland suffered a fatal drug overdose. In August 1995, lead guitarist Jerry Garcia died of a heart attack, effectively ending the band.&amp;#xA0;&amp;#xA0;&amp;#xA0;&amp;#xA0;\r\nBut  in the spring of 1990, Weir contends, &amp;quot;We were hot, feeling our oats  and surprising each other on stage. The jams had personality and space.  We were in good shape and had nothing better to do than get down on the  music.&amp;quot;\r\nThe proof officially arrives on September 1st in an 18-CD box, Spring 1990,  released by Rhino and available for pre-order at dead.net. The set,  limited to 9,000 copies and costing $199.98, features six complete  concerts, one from each venue on that tour, with deluxe packaging and a  60-page hardcover book. The shows in Spring 1990 will not be sold individually, but Rhino is also issuing a two-CD compilation drawn from the box.\r\nAside  from a few tracks from a date in Albany, New York, the shows are  previously unissued, and the set lists cover the Dead&amp;apos;s lifetime to that  point, from &amp;quot;Morning Dew&amp;quot; on their 1967 debut LP to &amp;quot;Picasso Moon&amp;quot; from  1989&amp;apos;s Built to Last.&amp;#xA0; &amp;quot;The improvising is great,&amp;quot; says the box&amp;apos;s producer, Dead archivist David Lemieux, who saw 10 shows on the tour as &amp;quot;a 19-year-old Deadhead.&amp;quot; But what distinguishes Spring 1990 &amp;quot;is how the Dead play smaller songs like &amp;apos;Big River&amp;apos; with such furious energy &amp;#x2013; and nailing it.&amp;quot;\r\nWeir and drummer Mickey Hart spoke about the new box and that tour for a story in the new issue, on newsstands Friday, August 3rd. Here is more from those conversations.\r\nHow would you describe Garcia&amp;apos;s health at the time of the  shows in this set? He&amp;apos;d been through the coma in 1986, but his playing  is strong and focused on this tour.Bob Weir: He was eating well. He  was off the Persian. And he was living life to the fullest, at least for  him. For instance, he took up scuba diving. He insisted that I join him  in Hawaii, so he could show me around down there. He was loving life  and having a good time. He was out of the darker bag he&amp;apos;d been in.\r\nThere is an energy and love of performing, a spirit of  continuing renewal, in these performances, in the way you cover the  band&amp;apos;s whole life on record in the set lists and in the Traffic and Band  covers you added to the rotation. Weir:&amp;#xA0;A lot of those songs were actually broken out the night they were  delivered on stage. I remember the Paul McCartney tune, &amp;quot;That Would Be  Something&amp;quot; [from 1970&amp;apos;s McCartney] &amp;#x2013; we were in a jam one  night, and that just came out. [The Rolling Stones&amp;apos;] &amp;quot;The Last Time&amp;quot; and  [Spencer Davis Group&amp;apos;s] &amp;quot;Gimme Some Lovin&amp;apos;&amp;quot; came back around the same  way.\r\nWe were real open, so it wasn&amp;apos;t hard to hear suggestions,  either in the back of your head or in what someone else was playing,  that would take us to a new place. There were a lot of jams that were  one of a kind, with their own personality and space. It was a hopping  era for us.\r\n How much did your 1987 tour with Bob Dylan expand your  covers repertoire? Folk and blues standards were always vital to your  shows, but did working with his catalog open you up to that classic era  of rock songs? Weir:&amp;#xA0;Touring with Dylan reminded us that within the song there is a poem. And  within the poem, there is a character telling the story. And that&amp;apos;s  where the song lives. There is a kernel of something that is bigger than  the notes, bigger than the poetry. And that is the song. Our tour with Dylan reawakened us to that notion. We took the bit and ran with it.\r\nThere is a stunning momentun and consistently high quality to  the shows from this tour, which is regularly cited by Deadheads as one  of your best. Yet by mid-summer, Brent Mydland was dead. What changed? Weir:&amp;#xA0;Probably chemicals. I think it was getting too much for Brent. When I  first met Brent, he was a temperate, modest soul. Inside the Dead, the  enormity of that endeavor proved to be too much for him. When we got to  this peak in the spring of 1990, things were going almost too well. It  was straight-up too much too soon for him, even though he had been in  the band 10 years. He was living on brinksmanship. It was as if he  became a victim of his own success.\r\nNext: Mickey Hart: &amp;quot;We were energized by our hit &amp;#x2013; and reacting against it.&amp;quot;\r\n\r\nThe Spring 1990 tour marked your 25th anniversary as a  working group. Yet you were playing at a higher rate of excellence and  adventure than a lot of bands half your age.Mickey Hart: With In the Dark, we had to start defending the shows.  People were breaking in. It was 50,000 people inside, 50,000 outside.  There was a lot of pressure on us to keep the peace. But it was hot on  all fronts &amp;#x2013; the band was in a good playing place. Brent was really  cranking, and we were bringing a lot of the old stuff out &amp;#x2013; &amp;quot;Death Don&amp;apos;t  Have No Mercy,&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Attics of My Life.&amp;quot; There was no pressure to reinvent.  We were just being the Grateful Dead. And Jerry was feeling good.\r\nYour &amp;quot;Drum&amp;quot; spot with Bill Kreutzmann was an established  part of the shows but also a place where anything could happen. How much  did you and Bill talk about what to play &amp;#x2013; and what was new to do?Hart:&amp;#xA0;We never did. That was one of the rules of &amp;quot;Drums&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Space.&amp;quot;  It was a place we left barren as far as talking about or arranging  anything. Sometimes we&amp;apos;d have fun with stuff. If we were in Las Vegas,  I&amp;apos;d sample the slot machines and make that part of it. It was a surprise  to Bill, and we&amp;apos;d both react on it.\r\nWe&amp;apos;d play with the band all night on drums, so we were anxious  to get off to a new space, like open-field running in football. It was  the place where you could take a deep breath, relax and create something  in the moment, as opposed to recreating something and embellishing it,  which is what jamming [on a song] is all about. This was making it  happen in the moment.\r\nIn the first show in this box, at the Capital Centre, you  play the hit single &amp;quot;Touch of Grey&amp;quot; right away: second song, first set,  as if to say, &amp;quot;Let&amp;apos;s get this out of the way.&amp;quot;Hart:&amp;#xA0;[Laughs] Yeah. Everybody wanted us to play it, Clive  [Davis, Arista Records president] and all. In good old Grateful Dead  spirit, we were like, &amp;quot;No, man, we&amp;apos;re not gonna be that band that goes  out and plays its hit. That&amp;apos;s so lame.&amp;quot; The most important thing was to  be the Grateful Dead.\r\nBut this Spring 1990 set is significant in that previous  tour boxs, like the complete Europe &amp;apos;72 suitcase, covered older,  historical eras. This one shows the Dead in their adult prime &amp;#x2013; still  relevant and charged fairly late in your history.Hart:&amp;#xA0;The Grateful Dead meant a lot to us. It was everything. And to  let it go, to peter out after all we&amp;apos;d been through, was unthinkable. We  had a burst of energy around that time, because of the hit. A hit  brings a whole bunch of energy, negative and positive. The kids breaking  down the stadium doors &amp;#x2013; they almost killed what they loved the most.  They almost put us out of business.\r\nBut that created an energy that we transferred into the music.  We were energized by that hit &amp;#x2013; and reacting against it. The hard thing  is, as [Ken] Kesey said, to stay within your own movie. We were able to  do that on this tour."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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