The Dead & Company closed out their residency at the Sphere and Las Vegas by paying tribute to one of their cohorts and calling for “a community of spirit with music.”
The off-shoot of the Grateful Dead kicked of their 17th an apparent final residency performances of 2025 on May 16 with a cover of Bob Dylan’s “When I Paint My Masterpiece,” a nod to the veteran 83-year-old singer-songwriter who is still on the road and was once touring partners with the Dead, who also served as his backing band in 1987.
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Along with their own classics such as “Dark Star,” “Sugaree,” “Drums” and “Space,” the band also included in their set a cover of The Crickets’ “I Fought the Law,” a song famously covered by the Bobby Fuller Four and the Clash, in their set on May 16.
The band, which includes relative newcomer John Mayer sitting in for the late Jerry Garcia, as well as original Dead members band leader Bob Weir and Mickey Hart, concluded their second set on May 17 with a pair of Dylan classics, “Tangled Up in Blue” and “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” before encoring with their own “Ripple.”
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Prior to the final song, the band delivered a recorded message courtesy of dearly departed member Phil Lesh, explaining “gestalt.”
“The way that we thought of our music was kind of our communion ritual. So that we commune with each other for what we thought of as a group mind, and that brings the music about, and when we can transmit that to the audience, they send us energy back,” Lesh said on the recording. “That was the main reason we played music to get that commune going and a sense of community. What we were doing was just in the original sense of the word, which means to bind together. We’re trying to create a community of spirit with the music.”
Coming up for Dead & Company is a celebration of the Grateful Dead’s 60th anniversary with shows Aug. 1-3 in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.
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