How Sweet It Is: Dead & Company Resume Las Vegas Sphere Residency With A Pair Of Debuts

After two weeks off, Dead & Company’s Dead Forever residency at the Las Vegas Sphere continued on Thursday night. Dead & Co. – Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir and drummer Mickey Hart with guitarist John Mayer, bassist Oteil Burbridge, keyboardist Jeff Chimenti and drummer Jay Lane – added a pair of songs to their repertoire, offering a debut in each of the show’s two sets.

Show 25 of the band’s 30-date run at the technologically enhanced venue kicked off the penultimate weekend of Dead & Company’s Sphere residency. The concert also coincided with what would have been the 82nd birthday of Weir and Hart’s late Grateful Dead bandmate Jerry Garcia.

“Man Smart (Woman Smarter)” was the first set opener for the second time at the Sphere. The virtual scaffolding flanking the band split open as “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo” soundtracked the journey from 710 Ashbury in San Francisco to the depths of outer space.

With a swirling tie-dye and dancing bears visual spiraling behind them, Weir led the first Dead & Company performance of “How Sweet Is (To Be Loved By You).” The R&B classic recorded by Marvin Gaye was covered by the Grateful Dead once in 1972. The song written by the acclaimed Motown songwriting team of Holland–Dozier–Holland was a staple of Jerry Garcia’s solo projects.

Following the debut came Sphere staple “Jack Straw” (with the paint-by-numbers scene featuring an animated depiction of Jerry Garcia) followed by the first “Me And My Uncle” since the first show of the Dead Forever residency. The set rambled on with Bobby taking lead on the Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter classic “Ramble On Rose.”

The final song of set one was helmed by Mayer, who was playing with an injured index finger on his left hand. Fretting with only three fingers throughout the concert, Mayer steered his bandmates into set break while pulling off a searing solo within “Althea.”

New songs were not the only additions to Dead & Company’s concert Thursday. The second set began with “Franklin’s Tower” accompanied by a new visual experience. Dancing Deadheads with psychedelic visual enhancement twirled and eventually floated around the Sphere.

Dead & Co. jammed their way through “China Cat Sunflower” into “I Know You Rider,” which segued into “Playing In The Band.”

Hart, Lane and Burbridge then took over for an excursion into “Drums.” The pulsating percussion jam dissolved into Hart layering the heavy drone of The Beam that typically signals the return of Weir, Mayer, Chimenti and Burbridge for “Space.” Instead, Hart briefly explored “Space” alone before Weir was the lone bandmate to emerge.

The pair of longtime bandmates were the only members of Dead & Co. onstage when Weir started playing “Lazy River Road.” One of the final original songs written by Garcia and Hunter, the Grateful Dead first played “Lazy River Road” in 1993 and it was part of the setlist of their final show on July 9, 1995.

The tender moment shared by Weir and Hart was followed by the rest of the band coming back onstage to join them on Bob Dylan’s “All Along The Watchtower.” The tender moments continued with “He’s Gone” taking on added poignance given the August 1st date.

The set rolled on with “Truckin’” and Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” bringing the visual experience back to Haight Ashbury in San Francisco. The 1960s news report about the Grateful Dead that sets up the final song of Dead Forever shows preceded a “Not Fade Away” finale.

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Video (Posted by Joe Wiseman)

Audio (Taped by Tony Jenkins)