Dead & Company Deliver at the Sphere With Psychedelic Visuals and Classic Iconography
Photo: Alive Coverage
Las Vegas experienced a strange convergence of music scenes on May 16. Electric Daisy Carnival, which draws 200,000 revelers to dance in the desert, had hit town; Pearl Jam was playing the MGM Grand Arena; and Dead & Company was launching the first show of a 24-date residency at the Sphere. Casino staff might have a had a hard time telling one reveler from another — ironic Hawaiian shirt signifying the Venn diagram union — but the Heads proved an understated force in the hours leading up to the big show. The anticipation was, as they say, palpable.
Arriving at the technological marvel of a venue a month after Phish played a four-night run at the Sphere, Dead & Co. — featuring original Grateful Dead members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart, along with John Mayer, Jeff Chimenti, Oteil Burbridge and Jay Lane — clearly understood the assignment: make the most of the space by filling it with psychedelic themes, trippy animations and classic iconography beloved by diehard fans.
As with the Dead’s origin story, all roads lead to San Francisco, and this latest iteration of their musical legacy — which formed in 2015 on the heels of the successful run of Fare Thee Well shows (where Phish’s Trey Anastasio stepped into the formidable shoes of the late Jerry Garcia) — paid homage to the band’s birthplace throughout its two sets, bookending the night with a bird’s eye view of the Haight.
Broadly speaking, the visuals conveyed the “long, strange trip” started some 60 years ago. Zooming out from the street to the sky to outer space as the band wound its way through mid-tempo staples “Feel Like a Stranger” and “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo” then settled into a purple haze with “Jack Straw,” the crowd was mesmerized. Looking up was like staring into the heavens — an expanse so big and seemingly infinite, you start to feel like you’re levitating.
“Bird Song” brought an idyllic rainforest vibe complete with rainbow, while “Brown Eyed Women” enlisted the skeletal emblem that permeates much of the Dead’s illustrated lore. Unlike Phish, Dead & Co. incorporated views of individual band members so that you were staring at a 100-foot-tall Weir, and able to see every bead of sweat projected in high-definition.
Dead & Company at the Sphere
Photo: Shirley Halperin
It took some time, but John Mayer is clearly a part of the band’s tapestry at this point, impeccably tastefully himself while hinting at Jerry Garcia’s phrasing and timing: little precisely imprecise licks worked in and around Bob Weir’s laid back playing that only occasionally errs on the side of bluesy rather than lyrical. The high point was a segment during “Franklin’s Tower” in the second set when Mayer found himself exploring the higher part of his PRS fretboard, a noodle within a groove that was both inspirational and inspired.
Not enough is generally made of the Sphere’s miraculous sound system, which for this show found its groove halfway through the first set. Unlike, well, every other concert venue in the world, there is no discernible PA and the room’s acoustics (via 160,000 speakers hidden within the massive Sphere itself) are famously able to immerse the audience in sound without blowing them out of their seats.
Though the mix for the Dead was relatively straightforward it was also impeccably crisp, a boon to Weir, whose famously brittle guitar tone here came off lively and dialed-in. The same went for percussionist Mickey Hart and drummer Jay Lane, the latter a newer addition to the band who pushes forward where Bill Kreutzmann would normally lay back, a welcome change for fans getting a little too dreamy-eyed during the more meandering passages of the band’s catalog.
All that said, the band’s set-two staple, known as “Drums/Space,” benefitted from a cosmic tapestry that enveloped and engaged the audience far more than at a stadium show where the video screens, by comparison, are teeny. Kaleidoscopic shapes morphed with the rhythms, drums of all varieties cascaded from the ceiling and Hart’s mastery of otherworldly sounds truly shined (so much so that the ambient noise put some to sleep — literally).
Elsewhere during the second set (the band opted to skip an encore), fans were treated to colorful animations of dancing bears, flying eyeballs and cotton ball trees via a magic motorcycle ride through Grateful Dead history where Easter eggs included a tiny Jerry Garcia cartoon looking on from a quaint house and the exterior of Terrapin Station (a giant turtle would also make its presence known). Favorites “Uncle John’s Band” and the triple whammy “Help on the Way” > “Slipknot!” > “Franklin’s Tower” invited sing-alongs while the moody and slow “He’s Gone” welcomed a quiet introspection — no doubt many in attendance were thinking of Garcia, who died in August 1995.
With such a long history, and so much archival material at hand, Dead & Co. were able to lean on images that most fans had never seen up close: backstage passes, phone lists, early promotional posters and, of course, many photographs. Some of those items (passes, notes, ticket stubs and tapes) were on display at the nearby Venetian Hotel and Casino, where a “Dead Experience” pop-up has set up shop offering exclusive merchandise, a photo exhibit, a gallery of Hart’s visual art and a recording booth for “Dead Head Confessions” alongside Sirius XM’s Grateful Dead Channel’s broadcast. Also present in the 20,000 square-foot space are charity partners like HeadCount and a dancing bear mascot standing at the ready for selfies.
There were no such gimmicks at the Sphere, however. In fact, the usual distractions of a Grateful Dead show — balloons, flags, spinners in the floor section — were scant. The crowd was too transfixed in everything happening around them. And so, as “St. Stephen” utilized the acid test melting colors motif to remind devotees of the beginning, a cover of “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” brought to mind the end, but not before the show’s official closer — and parting thought — “Not Fade Away.”
See more images from Dead & Company’s opening show at the Sphere below:
Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article misstated the date of Garcia’s death.
