Ned Lagin was still in school at MIT, but he made the trip to Port Chester to play with the Dead for the first time at this show. You can hear his presence as the Other One momentarily jumps the rails and charges off into a psychedelic vortex before suddenly rising again. The rest of the band’s playing is off the charts, and the crowd rightly roars at the end of the song. But the Dead are far from done, and the first tocsin chords of Dark Star sound forth. As Ned explains, “The Dark Star was a very abstract feedback-oriented one early on, then beautiful. It was very much more Seastones-esque than other Dark Stars, characteristic of some of the earlier summer jamming” that he had been doing with the band out in California. And while Ned’s contributions are not all that audible on the Stephen, he is surely pressing the boys to turn in this high-octane performance. The rest of the show is quite good too, bookended by two great – all of his were – Pigpen performances on Hard To Handle and a righteously lengthy Lovelight.