For many of us, the Mikey Houser-era lineup is the lineup that comes to mind when thinking of Widespread Panic. 

By 1998, with the essential membership well-established, the band had a large enough repertoire and enough miles behind it that if I had needed a post-Grateful Dead band with which to tour, Panic would’ve been that band. Alas, I was growing up, entering what college me called “the real world” of newspapering with little pay and littler time off and made due with seeing Widespread Panic as often as sporadically possible. 

It’s against this backdrop that I am salivating over the long-overdue and just-as-welcome Athens 1998, which captures the Panics’ April 18 outdoor gig in its Georgia hometown before some 100,000 Spread Heads who turned out to celebrate the release of Light Fuse, Get Away.

Twenty-seven years later, after the deaths of guitarist Houser and drummer Todd Nance, both co-founding members, Athens 1998 is another release to celebrate. Running three hours across 25 then-career-spanning cuts and outfitted with a fresh John Keane mix, it’s an aural flashback to peak Panic, Widespread at its feral, prime-of-life best, with just enough crowd noise dusted between the six musicians to capture the outdoor atmosphere as well as any recording could. 

“Disco.” “Tall Boy.” “Walkin’ (For Your Love).” “Porch Song.” “Space Wrangler.” “Ain’t Live Grand.” All were played on this evening and sported power that explains why they remain in the repertoire. 

While there were far fewer songs from which to build a setlists, this was a golden age for Panic, hometown heroes breaking bigger with the aura of Houser’s lingering lead; a healthy Nance; a gravel-and-bronze throated John Bell; a boisterous, deliberately out-of-the-pocket Dave Schools down low; a very busy Sunny Ortiz sprinkling percussive magic everywhere; and JoJo Hermann unlocking it all with his keys. 

When Widespread Panic is no more, this is how I will remember Widespread Panic.