Dead & Company made national headlines this week as the Grateful Dead offshoot revealed it will be the third-ever band to play Las Vegas’ Sphere. Though he suddenly left the band prior to their Final Tour, drummer Bill Kreutzmann took to social media on Friday to say a few words about the upcoming Dead & Company Dead Forever residency.
After quoting the great Hunter S. Thompson‘s landmark Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Kreutzmann reflected on the original Grateful Dead’s history with Sin City. From the more intimate Alladin Theatre gigs of the early 1980s to the band’s 14 stadium shows at the Sam Boyd Silver Dome from 1991–1995, Kreutzmann said “It was always a psychedelic circus when the Grateful Dead pulled into Las Vegas.”
“The Grateful Dead were always about transformative experiences and so now, as our legacy evolves and as we continue to shape-shift into several different forms at once, it’s great that that part of the tradition continues, with Dead & Company taking up residence in a transformative venue,” Kreutzmann wrote.
If Bill’s mere mention of an upcoming Dead & Company gig inspired hope that he might rejoin the band for this historic run, the last line of his post seemed to dash it, “To all those who make it there, have a blast, my friends…”
Kreutzmann formed Dead & Company in 2015 with fellow Grateful Dead members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart along with John Mayer, Jeff Chimenti, and Oteil Burbridge. The band filled arenas and amphitheaters into the early 2020s and brought the music of the Grateful Dead to venues it hadn’t consistently filled in decades. When the band returned from the COVID pandemic in 2021, however, Kreutzmann experienced various health problems that often precluded him from performing—replaced onstage by drummer Jay Lane. On the band’s 2022 summer tour, he missed more shows than he played.
Then in early 2023, Dead & Company confirmed that its upcoming summer trek would be its last, billing it as The Final Tour. Just weeks before the tour was set to begin, however, the band announced that Kreutzmann would not join them for their alleged last ride. In a statement, the band wrote that the decision was “the culmination of a shift in creative direction,” that the tour had Bill’s “full endorsement and support,” and that Kreutzmann was in good health and not retiring. Bill offered no statement of his own.
Since then, Kreutzmann has kept himself as busy as he chooses with sporadic gigs by his Billy & The Kids supergroup featuring Tom Hamilton, Aron Magner, and Reed Mathis. The band has continued to bring new blood into the group, including Daniel Donato, Sierra Hull, Kanika Moore, Molly Tuttle, and Brad and Andrew Barr for various onstage collaborations last year.
Dead & Company are set to begin their 18-show residency at Sphere on May 16th. The band will stage six separate three-night runs, wrapping on June 20th, 21st, and 22nd. They will follow U2 and Phish as the first acts to play the state-of-the-art, $2.3 billion venue on the Vegas Strip. For more details on the Dead Forever residency click here.
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