One More Saturday Night: Dead & Company Wrap 30-Night Residency at Sphere

August 12, 2024

Photo Credit: Joshua Hitchens

After 30 nights, Dead Forever has come to a close. Led by Dead & Company, the Grateful Dead offshoot, consisting of members Bobby Weir, Mickey Hart, John Mayer, Oteil Burbridge, Jeff Chimenti, and Jay Lane, concluded its three-night seemingly weekly concert series on Saturday, August 9. The show marked the band’s final live performance for the foreseeable future, but not before a presentation of two sets, which permeated with the celebratory feel of the original band’s archive and the completion of a massive assignment.

Cunningly, Dead & Company positioned Go to Heaven cut, “Feels Like a Stranger” in the night’s first position, using the line, “Long, long, crazy, crazy night” as the true rev and fueling a throughline into “Franklin’s Tower” which coincided with an epic launch from the original jamband’s Victorian townhouse, above the Bay and into the stars, allowing them to use the cosmos as a backdrop for their improvisation, adding new meaning to spacey.

On the other side of the Blues for Allah pick, Dead & Company slowed the tempo by adding “Row Jimmy.” The focused take on the latter made way for fan favorites, “Tennessee Jed,” and set one closer/ Mayer favorite, “Althea.” After a mid-concert pause, the sextet resumed their positions ahead of sister staples, “China Cat Sunflower,” into traditional “I Know You Rider.” As if a nod to the original band’s live history and sequenced pairs, with an improvisational heavy, “Help on the Way” into “Slipknot!”

Like last week, the band used “Terrapin Station” as the last stop before the instrumental spectacular “Drums,” “Space,” and “Standing on the Moon,” complete with complimentary visuals that emulated the cheese-like surface, adorned with “Old Glory standing stiffly crimson, white and indigo.” Another crowd-pleaser, “Bertha,” merged on the other side of “Standing.”

Given the nature of their final concert and the impending future of the country’s political furture, the band seemed to nod to the election, with “U.S. Blues” before striking the emotive feeling of the residency close out on “Brokedown Palace.” After bidding “fare thee well,” news clips pieced the story of the initial San Francisco jamband ahead of a fitting “One More Saturday Night” and expected ender, “Ripple.”

Following the show, band members shifted thanks and residency memories to social media. Bassist Oteil Burbridge wrote, “I can never say that my best days are behind me. The Final Tour last year taught me that yet again. I hardly believed that we could ever top what we did then. But then along came the Sphere.”

He continues, “I can’t imagine what the Sphere must have been like for the eldest of our Deadhead family. The ones who remember seeing the Dead in those legendary venues on those very early dates! What a long wondrous strange trip it still is.”

Sharing his own thanks, Weir wrote, “That’s a wrap on 30 incredible shows at @SphereVegas! Thanks to the band, crew, and everyone involved for helping make it special. We enjoyed bringing you all along on the journey with us. Safe travels home, everyone!”

While Dead & Company has cleared its schedule, Weir is slated to return to the road with his Wolf Brothers project in the symphony format this fall. He will also participate in Robbie Robertson’s celebration of life at the Kia Forum outside Los Angeles on Oct. 17, prior to the onset of orchestra arrivals, beginning Nov. 13. For more information, visit Weir’s official website.