Dead & Company

Dead & Company – Playing In The Sand, Riviera Maya, 2/15/18 (Live) (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 03:22:21 minutes | 2,17 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Rhino

“…and we hightailed it down to Mexico…”

There’s nothing to relieve the chill of mid-winter like a little getaway to a tropical paradise. So, when Dead & Company announced a run of shows on the shores of the Yucatan Peninsula scheduled for February of 2018, several thousand happy Dead Heads quickly grabbed up every available ticket and hotel reservation and headed south of the border, to the Barcelo resort at Riviera Maya, Mexico. The excursion, appropriately named “Playing In The Sand” – quite literally, as the stage was set up right on the beach overlooking the Caribbean – provided both a sweet coda to the hugely successful fall tour of 2017 and a harbinger of more great things to come in the new year.

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Dead & Company – Phillips Arena, Atlanta, GA 11/29/17 (Live) (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 02:57:27 minutes | 1,92 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Rhino

The Grateful Dead’s long and happy relationship with the city of Atlanta began on July 7th, 1969 with a free concert in Piedmont Park – a little gift given to the city by the promoters of an event at which the Dead had not performed: the first Atlanta International Pop Festival, which was up to that point the largest gathering of its kind (it was a short reign, though, as its attendance was dwarfed a bit over a month letter by a certain shindig on a farm in upstate New York). Atlanta went on to become a frequent destination on Dead tours throughout the ensuing quarter century, with 24 of the band’s 36 total performances in the city taking place at the Omni, the dominant sports and entertainment arena in the area from 1972 to 1997. The venue holds an especially notable place in Grateful Dead history for having been the location of the last live “Dark Star” the Dead ever played, on March 30th, 1994.

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Dead & Company – Nationwide Arena, Columbus, OH 11/25/17 (Live) (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 02:48:36 minutes | 1,83 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Rhino

While they were a California band with a massive contingent of fans on the East Coast, the Grateful Dead always enjoyed a large and loyal following in the Midwest. That relationship has continued with Dead & Company, with the band including the nation’s heartland in its plans numerous times since first convening in 2015. They made a particularly rewarding visit to Columbus in November of 2017, with a show that many listeners, as well as members of the band and its traveling party, have ranked among the very best of that Fall’s tour. The recorded evidence fully supports that assessment.

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Dead & Company – MGM Grand Garden Arena, Las Vegas, NV, 5/27/2017 (Live) (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:56:40 minutes | 3,37 GB | Genre: Rock, Psychedelic Rock, Jam Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Rhino

Performance by the Dead & Company lineup made up of Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, John Mayer, Bob Weir, with Oteil Burbridge and Jeff Chimenti, from their 2017 Summer Tour.

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Dead & Company – Madison Square Garden, New York, NY 11/14/17 (Live) (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 02:59:17 minutes | 2,00 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Rhino

Let us pause for a moment to praise some of the hardest-working people on the planet – those insanely dedicated individuals who toil on road crews for touring bands, and especially the men and women who have served in those roles for the Grateful Dead and its performing offspring for over five decades. These are the rock ‘n’ roll heroes that most people never see or know by name, but are every bit as essential to making the music happen as the musicians themselves – the people who work the longest hours, do the heaviest lifting and have to attend to the countless logistical and technical details that assure everything will work as seamlessly as possible at show time. We call this to your attention here because, as you might notice, Dead & Company played their two shows at Madison Square Garden on non-consecutive nights. This is because when attempting to book shows into multi-purpose facilities like the Garden, bands and their promoters are at the mercy of the schedules of the professional sports teams that are the building’s principal tenants. And so it was in this case – the New York Knicks had games on tap for November 11th, 13th and 15th. Which meant that the Dead & Company crew had to wait until the first of those games was over and the basketball court and seats removed before they could load in the band’s gear and set up the stage, sound and lights in the wee small hours of the 12th, start breaking everything down and storing it the moment the first show was over, start the whole process over after the game on the middle day, and then clear out for the Knicks yet again immediately after the show on the 14th, loading everything into the trucks headed for the next show in Philly. So, the next time you go to a show… thank the crew!

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Dead & Company – Madison Square Garden, New York, NY 11/12/17 (Live) (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 02:45:09 minutes | 1,81 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Rhino

“Don’t tell me this town ain’t got no heart / When I can hear it beat out loud.” Nowhere on Earth do the hearts of Dead Heads beat louder and stronger than in New York City and its surrounding metropolitan area, which the Grateful Dead came to consider a second home over the course of their three decades of touring. A small but devoted gaggle of fans that greeted the band on its first visit to town in June of 1967 grew into the core of the Dead’s huge East Coast following, taking them from clubs to theaters to arenas and stadiums. And of all the venues the Dead played, none played a more significant role in the band’s career than Madison Square Garden, the internationally famous arena that has been the site of some of the most memorable events in both sports and entertainment history, and at which the Dead performed 52 times between 1979 and 1994. The exchange of energy between that band, that building and that audience was quite literally palpable, thanks in part to the Garden’s unique design – the roof is suspended from cables, and the arena floor, located five stories above street level, rests on giant shock-absorbing springs, so that the room actually moves to the music as the audience does… and you know how this audience moves, even without help from the building!

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Dead & Company – Little Caesars Arena, Detroit, MI 11/24/17 (Live) (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 02:34:38 minutes | 1,65 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Rhino

“Can’t forget the Motor City!” …so Detroit’s own Martha Reeves and the Vandellas advised us in one of the greatest tunes ever committed to vinyl: their 1964 smash “Dancing In The Street” (co-written by another Motown superstar, Marvin Gaye). The Grateful Dead took Martha’s advice to heart, adopting the song as a vehicle for extended jamming (and, of course, dancing) as early as 1966, then reviving it in the late 70s in a revamped arrangement referred to by some as “Disco Dead” (but which also left room for some very un-disco improvisational tangents). Happily, Dead & Company also didn’t forget the aforementioned Motor City when scheduling their 2017 Fall tour, opening their evening there with that timeless native-born hit and going on to deliver a show that did full justice to Detroit’s hallowed place in America’s musical heritage.

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Dead & Company – Isleta Amphitheatre, Albuquerque, NM, 7/11/2018 (Live) (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 03:10:32 minutes | 3,74 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Rhino

Dead & Company is a band consisting of former Grateful Dead members Bob Weir (guitar), Mickey Hart (drums), and Bill Kreutzmann (drums), along with John Mayer (guitar), Oteil Burbridge (bass/drums), and Jeff Chimenti (keyboards). The band continues the strong live tradition of the Grateful Dead, creating unforgettable experiences at their shows, no two performances being alike. To date, the band has released no studio recordings, but all of the concerts from their 2016, 2017 and 2018 tours have been (or are being) released as albums.

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Dead & Company – Frank Erwin Center, Austin, TX 12/2/17 (Live) (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 02:55:49 minutes | 1,87 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Rhino

“T for Texas / Yes, and it’s T for Timbuktu” – When Dead & Company took to the stage at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin, TX on December 2, 2017, no one thought that the band was about to play its final show of the year. After all, there were three more dates on the tour itinerary, in New Orleans and Florida. It wasn’t until a few days after the Austin show that unforeseen circumstances would force those scheduled gigs to be postponed until the following February. But if the tour finale was an inadvertent one, no one could have asked for or planned a better capstone to a great musical year, as the band delivered a performance that more than a few informed listeners have called the best of the Fall tour, the best of 2017, or perhaps even the single best show Dead & Company had yet played, period. The audio evidence makes a compelling case for any and all of those claims.

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Dead & Company – Folsom Field, Boulder, CO 7/14/18 (Live) (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 03:04:08 minutes | 3,57 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Rhino

“The planets themselves were in alignment, and all was right with the world last night in Camden. Throughout the epic, nearly four-hour experience, the entire amphitheater was buzzing… a band that pays all the respect in the world to the history and legacy of The Grateful Dead while still barreling forward, eyes wide open, into the future..” (Asbury Park Press)

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Dead & Company – Folsom Field, Boulder, CO 7/13/18 (Live) (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 03:08:21 minutes | 3,68 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Rhino

From the moment they met, it was clear that Dead & Company and Boulder, Colorado were going to get along just fine. This should come as no surprise, as the Grateful Dead had a long and happy relationship with the Rocky Mountain state from their very first gigs at the Denver annex to San Francisco’s Family Dog in the Fall of 1967. And Boulder itself is about as freak-friendly a place as you’ll find anywhere. The arrival of tens of thousands of Dead Heads in the college town felt like not so much an influx of outsiders as just a temporary expansion of the local population. Dead & Company’s first two-day engagement at Folsom Field over the 4th of July weekend of 2016 was such a popular, artistic and social success that no less a pillar of the community than Bill Walton declared it absolutely imperative that return visits by the band should become annual events. No one had any argument whatsoever with that mandate, and so a tradition was born, with Folsom on the schedule for each summer tour thus far.

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Dead & Company – Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, CA 7/7/18 (Live) (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:56:56 minutes | 3,56 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Rhino

You just can’t beat a beautiful summer night at a major league ballpark – and that holds true whether you’re there to cheer on your favorite baseball team or celebrate that other great American pastime, the music of the Grateful Dead.

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Dead & Company – Chase Center, San Francisco, CA, 12/30/2019 (Live) (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:48:37 minutes | 3,12 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Grateful Dead – Rhino

One of the longest enduring traditions in the Grateful Dead world, going all the way back to 1966, has been the coming together of the tribe at the end of December, to say goodbye to one year and usher in another in the most celebratory fashion humanly possible. Needless to say, Dead & Company weren’t about to mess with that cherished ritual. And so, just as they were gearing up for their Fall Fun Run on the East Coast, the band announced that they would wrap up 2019 with an exclamation point, beginning with a pair of shows in Los Angeles and then bringing it all back home to the Bay Area for two nights, concluding with the customary New Year’s Eve revelry.

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Dead & Company – Capital One Arena, Washington DC 11/21/17 (Live) (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 02:46:28 minutes | 1,83 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Rhino

“You know it’s gonna get stranger…” It’s hard to imagine things getting a whole lot stranger than they are these days in Washington, DC, where we are told (as George Orwell himself might have warned we would be) to accept the existence of such things as “alternative facts.” Clearly, our Nation’s Capital has been in need of a happier sort of alternative reality, and Dead & Company were just the guys for the job for at least this one November night, delivering one of the strongest shows of the 2017 Fall tour.

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Dead & Company – BB&T Center, Sunrise, FL 2/26/18 (Live) (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 03:12:20 minutes | 2,06 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Rhino

“One way or another, this darkness got to give…”
The penultimate performance of Dead and Company’s Fall 2018/Winter 2019 tour proved to be an unforgettable experience for band and audience alike, for reasons above and beyond the fine music played that evening. When the last three shows of the tour had to be postponed from December to February, no one could have anticipated that fate would place the band’s visit to Sunrise, Florida in such close proximity to a horrific event that had devastated the area and the nation: the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School – located just a few miles from the concert venue – that took the lives of 17 students and faculty members on February 14th, less than two weeks before the rescheduled concert. It was quickly and unanimously decided by Dead & Company and its management that the February 26th appearance at BB&T Center could not be just another tour date, but a gesture of solidarity and healing for all those affected by the shootings. In that spirit, an invitation was issued to Marjory Stoneman Douglas students, teachers and families to attend the show as guests of honor, and several dozen — including some who had been directly in the line of fire during the assault — took the band up on the offer. The band members met with members of the school community before the show, and again in a memorable gathering during intermission, at which the students spoke of their resolve to turn tragedy into positive change, by launching a movement to address the American epidemic of gun violence and, in collaboration with the voter registration and voting rights advocacy group HeadCount, to encourage participation in democracy by young people.

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