Dead & Company Continues Tour In Detroit With Debut

After a day off to celebrate Thanksgiving, Dead & Company returned to the road last night for a gig at the Little Caesars Arena in Detroit. The six-piece act focused most of their first set on Americana-tinged material, which included a D&C debut and a pair of songs that called out the Motor City, while the second set saw the band open things up with their jam-friendly tunes.

Grateful Dead members Bill Kreutzmann, Mickey Hart and Bob Weir along with Jeff Chimenti, Oteil Burbridge and John Mayer nodded to their surroundings by opening up the night with a cover of Martha Reeves & The Vandellas’ 1964 hit “Dancing In The Streets.” The Motown classic got a huge roar of approval from the crowd when Bobby belted out the song’s “Can’t forget the Motor City” line. Tour workhorse “Jack Straw” followed, with Hitsville, USA once again getting a call out with the line “Catch the Detroit lightning out of Santa Fe.” Mayer, who was sporting a long-sleeved t-shirt with a old English D that that the Detroit Tigers use on their uniforms, stepped up to sing lead next on “Brown-Eyed Women,” which featured some fantastic keyboard work from Jeff Chimenti.

D&C kept the rustic vibes going with “Ramble On Rose,” and continued to add to their growing repertoire with the sextet’s debut take on “Deep Elem Blues.” The traditional song, which the Grateful Dead played regularly during their acoustic sets in the 1970 and was revived again in 1980, saw Mayer, Weir and bassist Oteil Burbridge swap verses. The band brought their first set to a close with “Beat It On Down The Line,” a tune the Dead played from their earliest days on through 1994 that D&C first played on opening night of this tour, and a fiery take on “Sugaree.”

Dead & Company kicked off the second set with a bit of an odd selection, going with the Workingman’s Dead track “New Speedway Boogie.” The cautionary tale about the tragedy at Altamont was followed by the exploratory jam vehicle “Dark Star.” The sextet next delivered the fan-favorite pairing of “Scarlet Begonias” > “Fire On The Mountain,” with Burbridge stepping up to sing lead on the Robert Hunter-Mickey Hart collaboration from Shakedown Street.

“Drums” > “Space” gave the band a chance to get weird, as the psychedelic excursion eventually wound its way into the tour debut of Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” from Zimmy’s 1963 sophomore effort The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. D&C got the energy back up with “The Wheel” and closed out their second set with a take on Buddy Holly & The Crickets’ classic “Not Fade Away.” The band finished off the night with a sing-along version of “Casey Jones.” Dead & Company return to the stage tonight with a show at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio. As always, a live webcast is available via livedead.co.

Watch pro-shot video of the opener from each set courtesy of nugs.tv, and check out the full setlist below:

[Dancing In The Streets]

[New Speedway Boogie]

Setlist