Excellent playing
A lot of fun to listen to

...does this bring back memories. Horrible, horrible memories. The sound was soooo bad, the band was clearly unable to hear themselves and none too pleased...and this recoding does a pretty good job of capturing the awfulness of this show.

Happily I ended up at Alpine Valley the next day.

Went with a friend of many years, and as a punk rock fan, I thought I was in for a nostalgia tip - little did I know.

As has been mentioned in other comments, the sound on the floor wasn't that bad.

Jerry mesmerized me that night.

Never a bad show.

1986 shows have a lot of variations on what had become fairly standard placement of songs first set v. second, song combinations, and where in the set a song appears.

I can't decide if that represents creative experimentation, compensation for, or causation from Jerry's addiction issues.

No Highlights

Yes the venue sucks yada yada but Jerry is playing pretty well. The cavernous space gives it an interesting spacy quality

i had to hear the aud tapes after all these years. the acoustics were worse than horrible in person...in fact i didn't even know the first few songs until i moved around. i was in upper deck on the side...bad, bad, bad. anyway ended up still in upper deck straight away and sound was better tho still not good. from what i recall ...29 years later..it was not half bad. I actually thought Tom Petty was the star of this show. Dylan was bad. listening to this aud now...it sounds better than i recall.

This was one of my earliest live GD shows and it was amazing. Huge crowd, and fun to see two major acts/bands trading headliner spots. (also caught the Dead set the next night in Troy, WI at Alpine Valley Amphitheater, where Dylan opened for the Dead; I missed Dylan's set that night, though).

Problem, aside from it being in the Metrodome in the first place was that the sound towers in the middle of the arena were facing the stage, and there was this wash effect to the sound. The earlier commenters who were there mentioned a delay. I thought it was intentional. It was very washy, though. I was pretty well medicated at the time, as probably most folks there were also, and so I got used to it. But this show definitely was interesting. I honestly can't recall much of the Dead's set except that at the very beginning of the show, the mains at the stage were not working for at least half the first song, only the onstage monitors, so the band could hear, but nobody else. Finally, the sound guys got it together, but then there was the incredibly horrific acoustics in this venue to deal with. They never totally rose to the challenge. But Dylan's set closing "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" was transcendant, with him backlit with klieg lights, frizzy hair and all stickin' up. All in all, with the urban setting, the parking lot scene, and the wacked out sound environment, it may not have been the best show, but it was definitely one to remember...as much of it as I could. I think if I'd been more familiar with their material at the time of this show, I would remember more. The recordings here on the Archive can't reproduce the electricity of the moment, but they do sound better than it did in person. Four stars for the recording, since it preserves a unique moment in both the Dead's and Dylan's careers.

Strangely enough, this tape sounds better than my recollections of that awful muddy sounding gig. Sitting 11th row center, the sound was barely tolerable with a prolonged echo that just mixed up the drums and bass into a thick, murky swirl. Early on, the band looked like they were having an equally difficult time hearing themselves - after all, it was a dome - a dome designed to make loud sounds overly cacaphonous so as to intimidate visiting teams and their fans. i.e. the 'dome advantage' for the Twins and Vikings. Add to that, an extremely hot and muggy day that stressed whatever air conditioning there was. The sound was soup! Credit the band for giving it their best shot - there were a few moments where they looked liked they were enjoying themselves. By the the end of the Dead's long, one-set gig, we felt beat up by the sound and the steam. Sadly, the sound for Dylan's set was even worse. 3 stars for the recording, 1 star for such an unenjoyable gig.

My first and only show. I was looking for a heavy metal band and my friend invited me to the Dead. I was in 8th grade and looking for metal (metallica etc.) Not sure if i remember what the sound was like but i assume it was crappy like it still is today. i remember people spinning and dancing everywhere and a drum solo with fire. after that i started listening to tapes and had up to 30 (not much) still fired up at 35 and wishing i could have experienced the shows like most of you! they were a true treasure.

As Mike Ditka put it.
I was 2nd or 3rd row off to the left side of the stage for this. I made it through the Dead but 3 songs into Dylan/Petty I passed out. I drove the night before from Chicago - no sleep! By 11 am. we had several cases of beer along with damn near every illegal contriband we could get. Wasted! Wasted! Wasted! and luckly it was one of the worst sounding shows I can remember! I don't think I missed much!

My first show! By far, the worst sounding concert I have ever been to. I mail ordered my tickets and I still ended up sitting way up top. With binoculars, I could watch the kick drum; see it being hit and count at least a second or two before I would actually hear it. That is all I heard for the entire setâ¦. echoing bass drum. I was up to high in the seats to make the mad dash to the floor like most of the crowd did. I could only watch as people jumped on top of each other to get from balcony to floor and as security sprayed them with mace. I had read later that the Dead sound crew would not take advice from the metrodome staff on speaker placement and sound. Months later I saw Pink Floyd there and they had it dialed inâ¦sounded great. So it was not the venue to blame as much as the Dead sound crew. Imagine that, the same crew that would often use the first set as a sound check. Once at the Cal expo, they forgot to raise the fork lift that held the outfield speakers. Nearly every year in Vegas, the crowd would have to chantâ turn it upâ before the back of the stadium could hear. One year in Denver, they forgot to turn on the speakers facing the side of the stage. When the sound crew was on, they were onâ¦but when they were off, look out.

Greg, just read your 83 Poplar Creek review, since I posted one too. I went to the Dome too for Dylan/Petty and the dead. That place was HUGE, and I alos was up front, like 10th row on side floor. I was thinking, I am so glad I am not in the back, they're tiny dots. I couldn't believe the Dead were the openers, and I had never seen a show where they rolled one set into another without a break. Kind of funny to go from Mexicali into Estimated. Sound was poor, even up front, and folks were talking during Dylan/Petty, though they were just fair. I've seen much better Dylan shows, and Petty didn't help, MB I just like Dylan in smaller venues. At one point during the Dylan show, I look up and Phil Lesh is standing on the caffolding above and he leans in towards me/others around and says, WATCH THE BAND!!, LOL...

According to the Dead.net archive for 1986, this was the WORST sounding Dead concert EVER. I still woulda loved to have seen all those heads in downtown Minneapolis though!

I was here in the middle of tour mostly hoping to see Dylan (who didn't tour nearly as much as the dead)with yet another dead show to boot!

I wasn't dissapointed, but I have always taken Dylan shows with the same perspective I do Dead shows...sometimes Dylan just falls flat and sometimes Jerry forgets the words to half a song.
Neither happened on this day, but there was no second coming either.

Dylan did not dissapoint at this show, but deadheads did!

I was on the floor near the front (did I mention I am rather obsessed with Dylan?...just like the dead are since he was the most covered artist--by far--in their repertoire).

I was shocked to see the majority of the deadheads in the front sit down and turn their backs on Dylan/Petty and chat with friends as if it was just some sound guys up there getting things in order before the "real" band played.

I saw this behavior a few other times at the other Dylan/Dead shows (I attended all of them), but it was most blatant at this one. I even heard a lot of heads dismiss Dylan as a has-been. What most heads really seemed to be upset about was Tom Petty.

It was a sad and surprising experience. And even worse with time since I have seen Heads being totally open and into other opening acts as divergent as the Violent Femmes (06-09-91 Buckeye Lake)and Dwight Yoakum (06-14-91 Robert F. Kennedy Stadium.

I went with a square friend of mine (a shy, retiring future banker) who slipped out of character and got really aggressive in trying to get onto the field. It was funny for me to watch him. He didn't even know the Dead, I'd dragged him there, but he was as determined as anyone. The dashing onto the field didn't seem like a bad thing to me, but I guess it was a foreshadowing of more injurious behavior. Anyway yes, the sound was bad for all 3 groups, and someone sold me some fake tabbage. Should've known better, but hey, it was summer of '86, remember? Krazy koncert.

Not only is it a bad venue for baseball and football, it was the worst sounding venue I ever saw the dead at. I was on the floor fairly close up and the sound echoed there as well. It was bouncing all around the bubble roof of the place. It was the first time I ever saw the Dead play one set. They led off then Dylan/Petty followed which was anticlimatic. The one memory I have from the show besides the echo's was during Sugaree Jerry bumped the microphone with his head, the entire stand fell and Jerry made a feeble attempt to grab the stand before it fell. I thought he was going to fall right off the stage. Just one of those occurances that will be imprinted in my mind.

This show was a single set, the sound was bad unless you were on the floor, then it was good. A strange show for sure, but worth a listen for those of us lucky enough to be at the place in time. The song selection was interesting how they went from first set material--Bob's cowboy tunes--to Terrapin Station, and a short space. The Aiko-Aiko was pretty cool too.

Dennis McNally and others say this was, acoustically, the worst venue the Dead ever played.
So I had to hear it ;-).

Sound is really not bad -- it's a decent aud tape, though Lesh, of course, loses the most.
Performance is solid but nothing to write home about.
So ultimately this is a bit of a curiosity, or maybe mainly worth it to people who were there.