The Grateful Dead did 74 shows and released their final studio album in 1989 and in the middle of the summer landed at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in Washington, D.C. Heavy rain and oppressive humidity greeted the band, but the performances they delivered there are considered among the tour’s best.

Those shows are being released 11/10 as a six-CD set titled Robert F. Kennedy Stadium, Washington, D.C., July 12 & 13, 1989 via Grateful Dead Records/Rhino. The set is taken from the band's master 24-track analog recordings, which have been mixed by Jeffrey Norman at TRI Studios and mastered in HDCD by David Glasser. The set will also be available as a digital download in Apple Lossless and FLAC 192/24 exclusively at Dead.net.

David Lemieux, Grateful Dead archivist and the set's producer, notes, "RFK Stadium '89 fell right in the middle of one of the best tours of the last 15 years of Grateful Dead performances, with these shows being the sixth and seventh of an 11-show tour. This tour is widely considered the start of a nine-month period of sustained excellence, which ran from summer '89 through spring '90.

“The RFK shows are as good as any of the more famous shows from this period, including July 4 in Buffalo, July 7 in Philadelphia, and the Alpine run. When Bob Weir has asked me to provide copies of Grateful Dead songs to give to his bandmates to learn and rehearse, he almost always requests summer '89, and I've often drawn upon the RFK shows for this purpose.”

Some trivia about the shows: The first set on 7/12 features at least one song sung by each of the band's four lead singers; "Sugaree" appears in the second set instead of the first; and Bruce Hornsby is a guest at both shows. More D.C. trivia: Rhino President Mark Pinkus continues to roll blunts in the shape of the Washington Monument.