In April '69 the Dead's shows were generally becoming looser; the singleminded focus we can hear in the winter shows was dissipating. They were looking to break out of the tight format of their shows over the past few months, and shake up the setlist a bit - but what they didn't have yet were new songs - those wouldn't start coming until June. So one little-mentioned facet of the April shows is that they dug up a lot of the old songs that they hadn't done, sometimes in years! (I know, since so many '67/68 shows weren't recorded, a lot of these dates will be wrong, but I think the general picture is true.) For instance, at the 4/6 Avalon show, they played Viola Lee for the first time since March '68, Beat It On Down the Line also for the first time since March '68, and It's All Over Now Baby Blue for the first time since 1966. On 4/5/69, they resurrected It's a Sin for the first time since May '66, and did it a few times that month. (And of course, they also did China Cat Sunflower for the first time since March '68.) At the 4/26 show they did Silver Threads and New Minglewood Blues for the first time since 1966. At the 4/27 show they did Me and My Uncle for the first time since 1967. They also started doing He Was a Friend of Mine regularly in April, which hadn't been in their setlists since 1967. And they started doing Sitting on Top of the World again, for the first time since March '68. And on 5/7/69 they pulled out a couple more antiques - Good Loving for the first time since May '66 (with Jerry singing), and Smokestack Lightning (which we only have one version of from '68). And, they started doing Hard to Handle (its debut show was 3/15). So without writing any new songs, the Dead added about a dozen oldies to their setlists that month, almost all of them 'traditional' tunes or covers. The shift to more country songs and Workingman's Dead would come a few months later....