Dead & Company: The Grateful Dead Is Resurrected (Again), This Time With John Mayer *

I had misread/misunderstood this interview with Trey:

Trey Anastasio: Lessons from Dead Camp

It made it sound like they had spent a lot of time rehearsing, but the fine print says they got together in mid-June. I wouldn't call 2 weeks much time to get everything just exactly perfect.

That explains some of what I was sensing at the FTW shows. They (Trey) was concentrating so much on hitting the right changes that there wasn't much flow.

 

Yeah would be very tough without much rehearsal time - pretty impressive what they were able to do really!

 

I really liked the Chicago FTW shows in the moment, but this was admittedly about the overall experience as much as anything else. I'd been to all the Soldier Field shows in the 90s, so the venue was meaningful and I had a chance to reconnect with old friends that I hadn't seen in years. The energy and emotion in and around the stadium each night was wonderful.

I'm sure there are a lot of songs they'd have liked another crack at, and more rehearsal would have been nice. But there were enough good moments to make it all worthwhile. As a celebration of our beloved GOGD it delivered.

I agree that D&C is a different animal since it's an actual touring band. They certainly should be tighter and more polished.

 

I think, objectively speaking (to my mind, anyway), each subsequent FTW show was better than the last, with the exception of the last show (which was a predictable and perhaps inevitable comedown). That tells me they were still learning on stage. Not to mention the too obvious cues they were throwing at each other in Santa Clara. They needed another couple of weeks of rehearsal, or a maybe a couple simulated shows before they played out in the stadium.

But I still loved it.

 

As much as I like Oteil, I would have liked to hear Core Four + Mayer.

 

There are a couple of other interviews, including a longer one with Charlie Rose, where he gets into a lot of solo stuff, but you can tell the mark this has made on him, and he's sincere when he says he wants it to keep going on.

In one way he reminds me of Garcia in that he seems to be a compulsive question answerer.

Oteil is a multi-instrumentalist, it would certainly be in GD family tradition for him to slide over to the drums for a set or two and let Phil play the bass.

 

Yeah, I don't regret for a second paying the price I did to see the 7/4 Fare Thee Well show. On paper, it doesn't look like my favorite setlist, but it was a lot of fun to be there and I liked the fireworks tie in for the holiday. The emotion and excitement was throbbing through the air, it felt like the world's biggest homecoming party at times - especially when you ducked into any of the local bars a short walk from Soldier Field. I'll always treasure it, but musically it did leave a lot to be desired.

Back on focus, I think I'm going to spring for the two nights of Boulder as CD copies. I wish I could have been at Wrigley, but I had to be out of town with family for the holiday. What are some of the other late tour peaks?

 

I've said it before, but Shoreline night 2 (June 4). Here's the Help>Slip>Frank that opened set 2

 

How did you pick which shows to listen to?...did you listen to the whole tour?

 

I remember reading when Fare Thee Well was in the rumor stage that there was the possibility of New York shows involving Jorma Kaukonen (instead of Trey). That I would've loved to have seen.

 

Did they play Easy Wind this tour?

I just saw this, I would have liked them to adhere to the bob solo first structure, and they didn't nail the riff as much as I thought they should have, but it was still a pretty sweet jam.

 

Mainly from watching the streams and from attendee comments and recommendations.

 

@posnera do you think there was a Twist tease during space at Wrigley on 6/30?

 

Not sure what song you are referring to.

 

Sorry, Phish's Twist. Some sites have referenced that in the setlist between Space and SOTM. I didn't notice it at the time but I played an audience recording of it today and there's a brief section with a similar sound. Phish played Twist when Bob sat in last year in Nashville so I guess it could be in his musical consciousness.

 

Yes. That sounds similar. At the time, I thought I was hearing Traffic, Tragic Magic.


Listen at 3:50

 

Yes, that sounds similar too

 

When I thought I recognized Traffic, I was hoping they would play Low Spark. It seemed like a long shot, but I pretty much always want to hear Low Spark.

 

It's not just Mayer that kills this music dead for me, sure his singing is an acquired taste and despite his obviously loving recreation of Jerry's 77 disco stoner hippie tone, he's still pretty much just out there shredding/solo'ing. Not that that's an easy thing to do, but it's the opposite of why people listen to the Dead. You might have hoped that he would have developed a little as a player playing a style of jam music that requires you to lower your ego and guitar love as much as this music does, but oh well.

To me, Bob Weir has been in acoustic land since at least 2014, his Ratdog tour then had great acoustic sets and electric sets that would put you to sleep, but when he sits in with Billy & The Kids or Phil Lesh & Friends he has no choice but to keep up and it's great.

Billy and Mickey on the other hand don't seem to be on the same page either with eachother or with any of the other players at all. Bill should really be made MD of this band if they do play together again, let Mickey only come out once it's Drumz time. Oteil's more of a John Kahn type of player, sounds great with Jeff in Voodoo Dead.

 

Been listening through 2017 material...I think my favorites have been 6/25/17 Camden, 6/28/17 Blossom, 6/10/17 Boulder, and 6/30/17 Chi-town...some more material for ya if you haven't heard 'em all.

 

Oteil would be the perfect singer for that song.

 

For me I saw the first night at Fenway and listened to some of the free streams and loved it. I hope these guys do more.

 

I'm listening right now to a rebroadcast of Tales From The Golden Road (Sirius/XM Grateful Dead channel for those who don't know0

They've had John Mayer on for the whole show. Great interview and down to earth. They also played "Ship of Fools" from Wrigley Field - where John and Oteil shared verses......sounded really great.

 

Oteil's singing was one of the real delights of those shows. The crowd gave him a bigger roar than pretty much anything else that happened.

 

droppin his new custom "Air Mayer" shoe this week. dude is core!