Dead & Company had “One More Saturday Night” in store for Sphere in July, wrapping the eighth week of the Dead Forever residency last night in Las Vegas. The Grateful Dead offshoot’s 24th of 30 shows at the state-of-the-art audiovisual innovation featured the third straight tribute to Bob Dylan of the weekend, a debut of “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”. The concert marked the band’s last show at Sphere until August 1st and was originally the final concert of the residency until the band extended it with six more shows.
While Dead & Company and the Grateful Dead have always held an affinity for Dylan, the timing of this weekend’s covers has added significance. Dylan is currently on the road with Willie Nelson‘s traveling Outlaw Music Festival tour, where the Nobel Prize-winning singer-songwriter has covered the Dead’s “Stella Blue” at nine of ten stops over the past three weeks. He first added “Stella Blue” to his repertoire last year on an international trek, along with a slew of other Dead and Dead-related covers including “Truckin’”, “Brokedown Palace”, Bob Weir‘s “Only A River”, and The Crickets‘ “Not Fade Away”. Since revamping his semi-predictable, Rough and Rowdy Ways setlist of the past several years for Outlaw Fest 2024, “Stella Blue” has remained in rotation alongside obscure ’60s covers from Chuck Berry, The Fleetwoods, Paul Davis, and others.
Following these developments, Dead & Company covered “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” on Thursday, busted out their first “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” since 2021 on Friday, and debuted “Baby Blue” on Saturday. Interestingly, the latter two arrived in the traditional post-“Space” ballad slot out of instrumental jams reminiscent of “Stella Blue”. Are Dead & Company sending a not-so-subtle hat-tip to one of the greatest songwriters of all time for covering a Grateful Dead song? Tough to say, as the Dead started covering “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” back in 1966, shelved it from 1974 to 1981, and then continued performing it until the band’s dissolution in 1995 following Jerry Garcia‘s death. However, it’s quite the coincidence that Dead & Company waited nine years until this moment to add the long-loved Dylan gem to its evolving songbook.
Dead & Company — “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” (Bob Dylan) — 7/13/24
[Video: Daniel Marino]
“Baby Blue” wasn’t the only notable cover from Saturday’s show, which opened with Dead & Co’s first “In The Midnight Hour” since New Year’s Eve 2019. As was the case with Friday’s show and keeping with the general format of the residency, the first song featured straight-ahead video of the band displayed on the towering Sphere interior. After the Wilson Pickett bust-out, it was time for another liftoff from the Dead’s former 710 Haight Street home in San Francisco, set to “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodleloo”. It was “Farewell to you old Southern skies” and we were on our way, reaching the stratosphere just as the “Across the Rio Grand-eo” bridge arrived and John Mayer‘s cascading lead guitar aligned with the transitive nightfall of diamonds.
Dead & Company — “In The Midnight Hour” (Wilson Pickett) — 7/13/24
[Video: CML’s Moving Picture Videos]
Given the familiar visual start to the show, the question for those of us attending back-to-back concerts became how much of Saturday’s visuals would be a repeat from the night prior? Depending how much free time you had on your hands, you may have already known that the entire show is bookended by blasting off and landing at the Dead’s former Haight Ashbury home. Between those ends, Dead & Company had plenty of room to improvise. “Shakedown Street” fittingly brought on a Stealie-clad disco ball for the band’s foray into the ’70s dance craze, and Sphere pulled back a giant red stage curtain for “Cold Rain & Snow”. As the band was broadcast in the middle of an icy Stealie, it was again apparent that you will never get a better view of John Mayer’s tongue than at Sphere.
Perhaps some of the best new visuals from Friday to Saturday arrived during “Loser” as audiences were transported to the Great Pyramids of Egypt, where the Grateful Dead played three shows in 1978 at the feet of the Great Sphinx. In addition to being jaw-droppingly cool, the renderings were also historically accurate as the team had direct input from guitarist/singer Bob Weir, as Mayer told Variety in a recent interview:
What was really great was that Bob and [drummer] Mickey [Hart] would give really specific notes based on their experience. So, if we’re gonna play in [simulated] Egypt like the Grateful Dead did in 1978, well, Bob got to see the mockup of that and it really took him back to 1978. In the Sphere studios in Burbank looking at some really early test stuff, it brought back all of these memories that he had of playing Egypt. And we took those notes, and they’re in there. There’s bats flying around in the beginning of that Egypt sequence, because Bob remembers there were bats everywhere. … That part was like having a historical consultant on your movie, you know? Let’s go right to the people who were there.
Dead & Company — “Loser” — 7/13/24
[Video: Daniel Marino]
The meaty mid-section of the show contained many familiar visuals from Friday’s program, including Stealies and other Dead iconography on the first set-closing “Sugaree”. Back for the second frame, audiences saw reruns of the ticketstub and photo collage during Weir’s obligatory “One More Saturday Night” opener. Dead & Company stacked up the Wall of Sound during “Help On The Way” before whizzing down Rainbow Road for “Slipknot!”. As Mayer fired off his signature Dead & Co cover of “Althea”, audiences were taken to another geographical wonder as the band was projected into the Northern Lights—which have seen increased visibility this year thanks to the ongoing heightened period of solar activity known as Solar Cycle 25. The calming visuals provided a cool-off ahead of the acid-drenched psychedelic pairing of a liquid light show and ’60s Dead anthem “St. Stephen”, prior to drummer Mickey Hart‘s nightly “Drums” segment with drummer Jay Lane and bassist Oteil Burbridge. While many have (erroneously) opted for decades to either retrieve or relieve liquids during “Drums” and “Space”, Sphere has made the percussive summit a fully immersive experience with some of the most consistently dazzling visuals of each night, keeping many more attendees glued to their seats than at a typical Dead show.
As was the case with Friday’s “A-Hard Rain”, the Sphere screen showed nothing more than a simple black-and-white video feed of the band overlaid on a dark blue background for the post-“Space” Dylan cover. The visual simplicity once again left audiences to sit and ponder the lyrics by one of rock’s finest wordsmiths. Coming out of the contemplative meditation, Mayer ramped the intensity back up with “Bertha” and the familiar image of the titular skeleton raining down rose petals. “Sunshine Daydream” took audiences on another tour of beloved concert venues, though with some new locales subbed in including Radio City Music Hall (featuring Dead Ahead artwork), Madison Square Garden, and Hampton Coliseum. Coincidentally, the door for the latter venue known as “The Mothership” opened up into deep space, which the band traveled through to wind down the show with “Sunshine Daydream”, arriving back at 710 with an emotional “Brokedown Palace”, and finishing off the show with no-nonsense video feed for the “Good Lovin’” closer.
Dead & Company — “Brokedown Palace”, “Good Lovin’” — 7/13/24
[Video: Daniel Marino]
Of course, there were plenty of other new developments aside from the pretty pictures onscreen. There were a pair of jams where the band members allowed themselves to fully step outside the lines of some of their more rigid musical templates. As the band moved through the instrumental portion of “Help On The Way”, Mayer eschewed his typical blues modes in favor of jazz-style guitar playing as he explored the space between notes. When Dead & Co transitioned into “Slipknot!”, the music became even more experimental as Mayer utilized two-handed tapping on the neck of his guitar. Mayer, Weir, Hart, Lane, Burbridge, and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti were no longer molecularly bonded to the song structure as they explored the outer reaches of avant-jamming ahead of “Althea”. “St. Stephen” yielded similarly satisfying results, as for a somewhat rare instance in the show and Dead & Company as a whole, it felt like Mayer was an equal partner in the improvisation and that his bandmates were doing more than simply propping him up—instead exploring psychedelic rock improvisation as a collective unit.
Dead & Company — “Help On The Way” > “Slipknot!” > “Althea” — 7/13/24
[Video: Daniel Marino]
While John Mayer is certainly never far from the forefront in Dead & Company, he shouldered some extra responsibility on Saturday. From the opening “In The Midnight Hour”, it was clear Bobby’s voice was a little hoarse. The show thus featured a sizable amount of songs either sung solely by Mayer or with vocals split between John and Bob. Elsewhere, the chart-topping guitarist was placed centerstage for lengthy solos that at times felt a bit lacking in the Dead’s trademark spirit of communal improvisation. Though the eternal flame of Mayer and Chimenti’s love will never be extinguished, their locked-in musical telepathy sometimes took a backseat to highlight Mayer’s spotlight moments on songs like “Sugaree” and “Althea”.
Dead & Company — “Sugaree” — 7/13/24
[Video: CML’s Moving Picture Videos]
There are obvious limitations in comparing Dead & Company’s Dead Forever residency to any given show from the band’s eight prior years. Given the highly choreographed pre-programmed visuals and overarching narrative, there is a certain sense of urgency not usually felt at a Dead concert. For your first show at Sphere, there is excitement around every song change as they bring on boundless new possibilities. Upon repeat visits, patterns begin to emerge and the visuals—while still undoubtedly impressive—become less of the main concern and once again take a backseat to the music. The Dead’s iconic songbook and legendary live performances are and always have been the primary focus of this tribe that has survived and thrived for nearly 60 years. And while the Sphere’s visual capabilities allow Dead & Company to tell these stories in new ways, the rigidity of the form can feel like a deterrent from the spontaneous magic of improvisation that has occurred night after night from the Jerry Garcia days to modern times.
Those limitations notwithstanding, this is the (Grateful) Dead & Company. Throughout the storied history of the Band Beyond Description, they have persevered through getting shocked at Woodstock, countless logistical issues in Egpyt, riots and police clashes outside concerts, and plenty of onstage darkness to consistently—year after year, decade after decade, and iteration after iteration—make genuine and meaningful connections with audiences. Whether it’s at Magoo’s Pizza Parlor or the most technologically advanced concert venue known to mankind, these musicians, these songs, and this community have never ceased to create completely in the moment for experiences that may be imitated but never recreated. “It’s a far gone lullaby / Sung many years ago / Mama, mama, many worlds I’ve come / Since I first left home.”
Dead & Company return to Sphere tonight, August 1st, for the penultimate weekend of the Dead Forever residency. For a full list of the band’s upcoming shows, head here.
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Setlist: Dead & Company | Sphere | Las Vegas, NV | 7/13/24
Set One: In The Midnight Hour (Wilson Pickett) [1], Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodleloo, Shakedown Street [2], Cold Rain & Snow (Traditional), Loser, Sugaree
Set Two: One More Saturday Night, Help On The Way > Slipknot! > Althea, St. Stephen > Drums > Space > It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (Bob Dylan) [3], Bertha > Sugar Magnolia, Brokedown Palace, Good Lovin’ (The Rascals)
[1] LTP 12/31/19
[2] “That’s All” (Genesis) tease
[3] FTP
Now that Dead & Company have a two-week break, why not look ahead to fall for the Golden Road Festival on November 7th, 9th, and 10th and Wonder Valley Ranch Resort? This all-inclusive boutique experience takes the stress out of planning special bonding moments, with communal diving as a cornerstone at this magical micro-festival. With only 200 guests, deep connections are forged as dear friends, artists, and fellow Deadheads gather over curated gourmet dishes, thoughtfully themed dinners, and carefully crafted cocktails. Relax, hang out, and let GRF spoil you for three days and nights as you enjoy quality time with your crew while you break bread together before dancing all night long. New package options are now available—check them out here and reserve your seat at the table.
The post Dead & Company Continue Bob Dylan Tributes With “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” Debut At Final Sphere Show Of July [Videos] appeared first on L4LM.
