A fun Iko opens the action in the second half before an entertaining Playin’ In The Band> Uncle John’s> Wave To The Wind. However, it is the Drums through China Doll that is the most intriguing part of the show. Drums wends its way through, even becomes, distinct ecosystems: breathing, cycling, circulating. On the other side, Space is aptly named as the boys dally in an otherworldly expanse, sentient beings minding the computers and life support on some distant alien mission before things start to congeal into China Doll. And this tune, the highlight of the evening, unfolds beatifically, leading to a lengthy and so beautiful Jerry-driven jam in the latter portion, dropping right on the doorstep of what turns out to be a rather desultory Throwing Stones. A similarly lackluster Lovelight sees the show out. But then how could we complain about a Brokedown encore, which ends it all on a high note.

Neil Peart, Rush’s drummer, was at this night, his first Dead show, by way of a special invite from Mickey. Apparently, as Peart described in his book, Traveling Music, he first contacted Mickey after his daughter did a science fair project on the theory of entrainment – the idea that any two entities, including people, synchronize rhythms when in proximity – which Mickey had written about in Drumming at the Edge of Magic (and this synchronization is what Mickey and Billy are after when they lock arms before a show). After corresponding for a while, they realized their bands were playing back to back at the Omni, so Neil and Mickey traded backstage passes. For this show, Peart sat on the stage directly behind Mickey, and he thought of the show, “they played and sang really well, too, augmented by the soulful keyboards and accordion of Bruce Hornsby. The drummers, Mickey and Bill, became an interlocking, mutually complementary rhythmic unit, right out of the Theory of Entrainment.” So there you have it, another take on the music this night at the Omni.