Dead & Company Finishes Gillette Stadium Concert With Marathon Set After Rain Delay

Dead & Company Summer Tour 2022 rolled into the Boston area on Saturday for a concert at Gillette Stadium. While storms led to a rain delay of approximately an hour shortly after the show began, the band returned to the stage at 8:30 and played straight through until the 11 p.m. curfew outside a brief encore break in Foxborough, Massachusetts.

Jay Lane was on drums for the seventh show in a row. Regular Dead & Co. drummer Bill Kreutzmann played portions of some of those concerts but was out of action all night on Saturday. “I’d just like to thank my friend Jay Lane for sitting in for me again last night and tonight, thereby allowing me to get back to full speed and full steam ahead,” Kreutzmann wrote on his social feeds just before the band took the stage in Foxborough. “Looking forward to reuniting and celebrating with all of you this coming week.”

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Lane, percussionist Mickey Hart, guitarists Bob Weir and John Mayer, keyboardist Jeff Chimenti and bassist Oteil Burbridge opened with a rollicking “Cumberland Blues” on Saturday. Mayer then led the group through “Bertha” with the “ran into a rainstorm” lyric receiving a huge cheer from the crowd as the storm approached. A crew member took the stage following “Bertha” and read a statement announcing a delay in the evening’s performance. Those on the field were asked to seek shelter in the stadium concourse while thunderstorms rolled through.

Read on after The Skinny for the rest of the recap and more.

After a two-song first set and hour-long rain delay, Dead & Company returned for a marathon second set. The sextet opened with a tight “Good Lovin’” sung with passion by Weir and followed with a pretty “Crazy Fingers.” Mayer went falsetto for his harmony vocals on the Hunter/Garcia classic the Grateful Dead recorded for 1975’s Blues For Allah, while Chimenti utilized electric piano for his portions of the song. Next up was “Mr. Charlie” featuring John Mayer channeling Ron “Pigpen” McKernan. While Dead & Company played “Mr. Charlie” six times last year, last night was just the band’s second rendition of 2022.

Dead & Company went on to pull from the Grateful Dead’s psychedelic era by linking “St. Stephen” and “The Eleven.” The jam out of the former was explosive with Mayer moving over to Chimenti at one point to egg on the keyboardist and then turning his attention to Lane in similar fashion. John built up a head of steam to a dynamic peak before taking it down a notch to reel off a series of bluesy licks. Jeff picked up on one of the riffs John played and the pair connected on a sequence they used as the basis for an incredible segment in which Mayer would end each measure started by his bandmates.

Eventually, the six musicians landed on the transition into the “St. Stephen will remain” chorus which was followed by the “William Tell Bridge” and yet another burst of improvisation. John Mayer delivered outstanding licks throughout each segment of a “St. Stephen” that stands among the best jams of the three-week-old tour thus far. The pre-“The Eleven” solo featured Mayer at his finest as he strung together one nasty lead after another propelled by a grinning Burbridge’s pulsating bass line. Dead & Co. pulled off a fairly tight “The Eleven” at a quicker tempo than usual thanks to Jay Lane. Weir barked out the “what now!” lyric to set the vibe for the song’s concise yet impactful jam.

“The Eleven” faded to silence at which point the band lit into “Brown-Eyed Women.” Chimenti took a rousing piano solo before Mayer tore up the fretboard. John noticed an issue in the crowd towards the end of the song and alerted venue staff. “We’ve got some event people in the orange shirt in the middle of the row looking for I believe some attendants,” the guitarist said. “Need some help over there. So everyone I’m pointing at, if we’ve got medics. If we could get a medic over to the middle of the center aisle,” Mayer added in a scene reminiscent of his solo concert in Los Angeles on February 9 which was stopped to allow paramedics time to tend to a fallen audience member.

Last night’s extended second set continued with a straight-forward “Estimated Prophet”/”Eyes Of The World” pairing. Weir handled lead vocals on both. The segment was highlighted by the improvisation just before the transition from “Estimated” to “Eyes,” which featured stellar interplay between all six members of the band. Another standout moment was Burbridge’s furious solo at the end of “Eyes.”

Mayer, Burbridge, Chimenti and Weir vacated the stage after “Eyes” leaving Lane and Hart to kick off “Drums.” Hart triggered samples including sounds of birds whistling as the base for the percussive adventure. As usual, honorary Rhythm Devil Oteil Burbridge came out a few minutes into “Drums” to add to the mix. The three musicians ended the segment with high-energy pounding before Mickey moved to the Beam. Hart used a bow to start “Space” with droning tones and quickly was joined by the instrumentalists. Mickey left as John, Bobby, Jeff and Oteil treated fans to an exploratory sequence. Rain fell while Hart and Lane came back for a cover of Traffic’s “Dear Mr. Fantasy” debuted by Dead & Company at Dodger Stadium on opening night of this summer’s tour. “Dear Mr. Fantasy” slipped into “Hey Jude Reprise” like all three other versions played by the group thus far. Weir and Burbridge sang the “nah nah nahs” and “Hey Jude” this time around.

A barefoot Bob Weir poured his heart and soul into the vocals for the melancholic “Morning Dew” to close Saturday’s second set. Dead & Company came back after a short encore break for an emotional take on the Bob Dylan classic “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door.” Weir and Mayer traded vocal duties as images of Grateful Dead members who have died were displayed on screens behind the band. The obligatory “One More Saturday Night” brought the concert to a close.

Dead & Company Summer Tour 2022 moves on to Xfinity Theatre in Hartford on Tuesday, July 5. Watch a livestream via nugs.net.

Watch pro-shot videos of the set openers below:

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https://www.instagram.com/p/Cfg28maubYM/

See fan-shot video footage from last night’s concert here:

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Source: JamBase.com