On September 4-a couple of weeks after the band's thrilling final run at the Greek Theater in Berkeley-Phil and his wife Jill gave birth to Brian, their second son. Phil Lesh was having his own personal renaissance that year as well.
When he was playing well, the whole band became more inspired. Though Jerry likes to say that the Dead didn't have a leader, he had the virtue of all great bandleaders, which is the ability to make other players' contributions sound even more brilliant by adding his own. This renewed and revitalized Jerry might even grin during a solo, dance a little two-step during a jam, and exchange conspiratorial glances with Brent Mydland, the band's fiery young keyboardist. It was as if his brush with the void had been a powerful reminder that "there's nothing you can hold for very long." As Jerry told interviewer Legs McNeil, "When I was in the hospital with tubes in me everywhere-with this machine slurching and things beeping and monitoring stuff-I think of a million things I'd rather be doing than lying in a hospital bed. As the Dead played to bigger audiences than ever-the result of having a hit single, "Touch of Grey," followed by an MTV tribute that introduced the band to a whole new generation of Dead Heads-Jerry seemed to be sculpting his guitar lines with greater urgency, and putting more passion and precision into his vocal delivery too. Much of the credit for this late-career renaissance goes to Jerry Garcia, who seemed determined to come back stronger after surviving a near-fatal diabetic coma in '86. For older fans who had been tracking the band's evolution for decades, the exuberant resurgence of the Grateful Dead in 1989 was a wonderful bonus, like wine of a classic vintage that had become even more delicious in just a short time.
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