will john mayer tour with dead and company 2023

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Dead and Company Announce Final Tour

By Ethan Millman

Ethan Millman

Dead and Company are officially gearing up for its final tour.

John Mayer posted a tour poster on his Instagram page that read “The Final Tour: Dead & Co. Summer 2023” and noted the group would have details on tour dates soon.

“As we put the finishing touches on booking venues, and understanding that word travels fast, we wanted to be the first to let you know that Dead & Company will be hitting the road next summer for what will be our final tour,” Mayer wrote. “Stay tuned for a full list of dates for what will surely be an exciting, celebratory, and heartfelt last run of shows. With love and appreciation, Dead & Company.”

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Dead and Company started in 2015 with three of the band’s original members: Weir, Mickey Hart, and Bill Kreutzmann, along with Mayer, Oteil Burbridge, and Jeff Chimenti. The band has been one of the more prolific live acts since their formation, playing each summer (minus 2020 during the pandemic). More recently, though, there’s been some lineup shakeups over some health issues surrounding Kreutzmann. He had to pull out of the later-canceled Playing in the Sand shows in Mexico over concerns related to his heart. Then, during the summer 2022 shows a few months ago, as Variety noted , he missed several dates over a back issue, then a positive Covid test.

Mayer, for his part, had praised the Dead for years before Dead and Company started. As he told Rolling Stone in 2013: “This free expressive sort of spirit — I listen and I want to find a mix of that openness. I kind of want to go to [a show like a Dead] show, if it still existed,” Mayer said at the time. “But I wish that there were tunes that I was more familiar with. I wish that I could be the singer. I wish I could have harmonies.”

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Published: 2023/07/19 by Hana Gustafson

Dead & Company Break Down Final Tour by Numbers, John Mayer Shares Comment on Band’s Future

Photo Credit: Jay Blakesberg

On Sunday, July 16, Dead & Company concluded their 2023 Final Tour with three sold-out concerts at Oracle Park in San Francisco, drawing a crowd of 120,000 fans. Their final tour was the most successful in the band’s eight-year history, bringing 840,000 attendees out during the cross-country trek. To mark their triumphant finale, the group shared their record-setting numbers.

Since the band’s 2015 debut, Dead & Company has completed 10 tours and performed in front of more than 4 million fans. During the Final Tour, they ran through 112 songs, including “Drums” > “Space” and the newly formed “Dark Star on the Big River Jam.” Since the band’s inception, they have delivered 145 unique songs during their 235 show history.

will john mayer tour with dead and company 2023

Beginning with Folsom Field in Boulder, Colo., the group shared that their three-night stand sold 130,000 tickets. Dead & Company currently holds the record number of performances at the venue, with 13 shows. The previous record for most shows played at Folsom by a single artist was three, held by both the Grateful Dead and The Rolling Stones.

Pertaining to their Wrigley Field dates, Dead & Company is the all-time leader in the number of shows played at the famed ballpark, with 10 performances across five tours (2017, 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023), as well as the all-time leader in overall paid attendance with 360,000 tickets sold across these shows. Additionally, they reign on top for single-show paid attendance when they set the record in 2017 with more than 40,000 tickets sold.

The band also holds the record for number of performances at Citi Field in Queens, N.Y., with 11 shows. In 2023 Dead & Company returned to Citi Field to perform for almost 74,000 fans during two sold-out concerts. The band also broke Boston’s (Fenway Park) all-time attendance record for the most tickets sold in a single night, previously held by Aerosmith.

In addition, Dead & Company also shared that its charitable initiatives since 2015 have raised more than $13 million to support nonprofits, environmental and social causes such as Parks Conservation Association, The Jerry Garcia Foundation, Heart And Armor Foundation, Gorilla Doctors, Seva.org , OXFAM, MusiCares, Surfrider Foundation, WhyHunger, iGiveTrees, Positive Legacy, Further Foundation, Conscious Alliance, Rainforest Action Network, Last Prisoner Project, HAPA, SPLC, and dozens of local and regional nonprofit groups.

Participation Row auctions, in partnership with nonpartisan and nonprofit voter registration organization HeadCount, surpassed $2,033,000 raised for charity during this year’s Final Tour. The count includes $355,000 from the Mickey Hart fine art auctions held in NYC and over the three nights at Oracle Park.

Moreover, their positive impact has resulted in 25,000 fans registering to vote. On the topic of sustainability, Dead & Company continued their work with longtime partner REVERB to reduce the tour’s environmental footprint and encourage fans to take action, resulting in 1.6+ million dedicated to greenhouse gas reductions and climate justice projects, 51,000 tonnes of CO2e neutralized and more positive change.

John Mayer summarized his time with the group, leaving room for the future, and noting: “@deadandcompany is still a band – we just don’t know what the next show will be. I speak for us all when I say that I look forward to being shown the next shaft of light… I know we will all move towards it together.” Click here to read the guitarist’s full post via Instagram.

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John Mayer Talks Dead & Company, Walking ‘On a Tightrope’ With ‘Solo’ Tour

Mayer is confident he'll reunite some day with Dead & Company. "We will play shows," he says.

By Lars Brandle

Lars Brandle

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The rocker recounted the time Fallon’s bandleader Questlove filled in for his drummer on stage at Madison Square Garden. “He was coming to the gig anyway, and somewhere along the line of him coming to the show he got offered to play like six songs,” Mayer remembers. Questlove apparently learned all those songs on the way to the Garden, and delivered the goods for a “magical night.”

At the top of the talk, Mayer took us back in time for his “Crypto Bismol” comedy spot which came to him one night and ended up getting pitched for The Tonight Show .

As its title would suggest, the Solo shows feature Mayer alone with an acoustic guitar on stage – “out there on a tightrope” is how he describes it. “It works,” he tells Fallon, “it’s an opportunity for me to play some of the songs from my career, tell stories around them, and read signs with requests on them and they’ll try to stump me and see if I remember an old song.”

Expect the concerts to be “open-ended and great, and fun, and I’m never quite sure where the show is going to go,” with “turn on a dime” moments. “It’s really exciting.” The format is “the most fun to have finished; you know those shows where they’re really hard when you’re doing them and then when you’re done you’re just so rewarded.”

Naturally, Mayer gave late owls a taste of things to come, with a one-man acoustic rendition of “Shouldn’t Matter but It Does,” lifted from his 2021 album Sob Rock.

Not to limit himself, Mayer also dropped in at Watch What Happens Live for a spot on the couch with Andy Cohen.

The questions came hard and fast, some from fans Zooming them in from home.

Among them, will Mayer reunite with Dead & Company (“we will play shows. I have to believe…everyone has it in their hearts to keep playing”), what is the sexiest musical instrument (saxophone), his first celebrity crush (Debbie Gibson), his three-word self-description as a lover (“takes some time”) and his least-favorite album ( Paradise Valley – he has reasons).

Mayer’s Solo arena tour kicks off Wednesday, Oct. 3 at the MSG in New York City.

Watch his latest WWHL appearance below.

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Dead & Company - The Final Tour

Tickets On Sale Starting Friday, October 14th at 10AM Local.

Static Digital Homepagecarousel 1920x1080 Deadandco Finaltour 2023 Nationalasset (1)

DEAD & COMPANY is launching its 2023 summer tour on Friday, May 19th and Saturday, May 20th in Los Angeles at the Kia Forum with dates running through Friday, July 14th and Saturday, July 15th when the tour ends in San Francisco at Oracle Park. The band - Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, John Mayer, and Bob Weir, with Oteil Burbridge and Jeff Chimenti – will perform two sets of music drawing from the Grateful Dead’s historic catalog of songs. Tickets go on sale to the general public beginning Friday, October 14th @ 10 AM local venue time through deadandcompany.com .

The highly-anticipated 2023 summer tour, produced by Live Nation, will be the band’s final tour since forming in 2015. Highlights include the tour-opening back-to-back concerts at the KIA FORUM in Los Angeles (Friday, May 19th & Saturday, May 20th), as well as doubleheaders at WRIGLEY FIELD in Chicago (Friday, June 9th & Saturday, June 10th); SARATOGA PERFORMING ARTS CENTER in Saratoga Springs, NY (Saturday, June 17th & Sunday, June 18th); CITI FIELD in NYC (Wednesday, June 21st & Thursday, June 22nd); and THE GORGE in George, WA (Friday, July 7th & Saturday, July 8th); an epic return to FENWAY PARK in Boston, MA (Sunday, June 25th); the band’s first-ever three-night stand at FOLSOM FIELD in Boulder, CO (Saturday, July 1st, Sunday, July 2nd, & Monday, July 3rd); and the tour finale - a two-night debut at ORACLE PARK in San Francisco (Friday, July 14th & Saturday, July 15th). A full listing of the 2023 tour dates can be found below.

To ensure that tickets get directly into the hands of fans, advance presale registration is now available HERE powered by Seated. The Artist Presale begins Wednesday, October 12th at noon local venue time and runs through Thursday, October 13th at 10 PM local venue time. Advance registration does not guarantee tickets. Supplies are limited.

Guests who prefer an enhanced experience for this memorable Dead & Company tour can purchase a variety of VIP and Travel Packages. Packages include seamless venue access, early GA entry, pre-show lounge with food and a cash bar, exclusive merchandise, or travel packages for multi-night runs in various cities. Packages from 100X Hospitality will go on sale October 12th at noon local venue time. For full details, click HERE .

Dead & Company and Activist will continue their work with longtime sustainability partner REVERB to reduce the summer tour’s environmental footprint and engage fans to take action for people and the planet. More details at REVERB.org .

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Dead and Company Announce 2023 Final Tour Dates

Dead & Company have announced dates for their 2023 tour .

The band noted last month that the tour will be its final one together. "Well, it looks like that's it for this outfit," guitarist and founding member of the Grateful Dead Bob Weir wrote on social media. "But don’t worry, we will all be out there in one form or another until we drop."

The 2023 tour will launch on May 19 with two back-to-back concerts in Los Angeles and then continue across the U.S. It will wrap with another pair of shows on July 14 and 15 in San Francisco.

"Let's make the most of it, shall we?!" guitarist John Mayer wrote on Twitter .

Back in April, Rolling Stone reported that Dead & Company would stop touring after 2022 , though at the time, this claim was refuted by members of the band, including Weir. "News to me," he tweeted . Now, however, it's been made official. In addition to Weir, original Grateful Dead members Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart are also part of the group, which was formed in 2015. Mayer, bassist Oteil Burbridge and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti round out the band.

Advanced presale ticket registration for the 2023 tour is now available, with artist presale beginning on Oct. 12. A full list of concert dates can be seen below.

Dead and Company, 2023 Tour May 19 - Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum May 20 - Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum May 23 - Phoenix, AZ @ Ak-Chin Pavilion May 26 - Dallas, TX @ Dos Equis Pavilion May 28 - Atlanta, GA @ Lakewood Amphitheatre May 30 - Charlotte, NC @ PNC Music Pavilion June 1 - Raleigh, NC @ Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek June 3 - Bristow, VA @ Jiffy Lube Live June 5 - Burgettstown, PA @ The Pavilion at Star Lake June 7 - St. Louis, MO @ Hollywood Casino Amphitheater June 9 - Chicago, IL @ Wrigley Field June 10 - Chicago, IL @ Wrigley Field June 13 - Cincinnati, OH @ Riverbend Music Center June 15 - Philadelphia, PA @ Citizen's Bank Park June 17 - Saratoga Springs, NY @ Saratoga Performing Arts Center June 18 - Saratoga Springs, NY @ Saratoga Performing Arts Center June 21 - New York, NY @ Citi Field June 22 - New York, NY @ Citi Field June 25 - Boston, MA @ Fenway Park June 27 - Noblesville, IN @ Ruoff Music Center July 1 - Boulder, CO @ Folsom Field July 2 - Boulder, CO @ Folsom Field July 3 - Boulder, CO @ Folsom Field Juyl 7 - George, WA @ The Gorge Juyl 8 - George, WA @ The Gorge July 14 - San Francisco, CA @ Oracle Park July 15 - San Francisco, CA @ Oracle Park

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Dead & Company Announce Final Tour

By Matthew Strauss

Dead & Company —the group featuring John Mayer and members of Grateful Dead —have announced their last tour. The shows will take place in summer 2023. The band will share the tour itinerary at a later date. Find Dead & Company’s announcement below.

Dead & Company got announced in August 2015, with the band’s first concert taking place that October. Since then, the group has toured annually. Ahead of this year’s summer tour , there was speculation that Dead & Company would quit touring after 2022. The band’s Bob Weir and Bill Kreutzmann, however, was surprised to hear the rumors .

Dead & Company have had many notable moments at their concerts. For instance, back in 2018, they performed with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon . Also that year, the band showed support for the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School during a Florida concert. And, this past July, while on tour in Virginia, Dead & Company shared a message in support of abortion and reproductive rights.

Dead & Company:

As we put the finishing touches on booking venues, and understanding that word travels fast, we wanted to be the first to let you know that Dead & Company will be hitting the road next summer for what will be our final tour. Stay tuned for a full list of dates for what will surely be an exciting, celebratory, and heartfelt last run of shows. With love and appreciation, Dead & Company

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Bob Weir and John Mayer Dead and Company 2022

After earlier hedging on whether the group might be coming to an end, Dead and Company issued a statement on social media Friday announcing a farewell tour for summer 2023.

The wording of the announcement suggests that details of the tour are far from final but that group members wanted to get out ahead of the news leaking with an official declaration that Dead and Company is coming to an end.

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The group’s Instagram post was accompanied by a dewy rose graphic and the words “more information coming soon.”

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Dead & Company (@deadandcompany)

Early in 2022, there had been rumors that the band — a contemporary offshoot of the Grateful Dead, with John Mayer as co-frontman — would be hanging it up after this past summer’s tour. It turns out the speculation was off by a year, with one more extended chance to see the band still ahead.

In response to an April 2022 report in Rolling Stone that the group would cease touring after this year, the band pumped the brakes on that news, saying then that “Dead & Company has made no official decision as to this being their final tour.” Bob Weir even posted on Twitter: “News to me.”

Health concerns have been an issue in keeping the full lineup intact, with original Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann sometimes having to miss shows. On the summer 2022 tour, he was out of the lineup for six straight shows before delighting fans by returning for the tour-closing shows at New York’s Citi Field.

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John Mayer Announces Dead & Company’s Final Tour For 2023

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Music + Concerts | Dead & Company kick off farewell tour with…

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Music + concerts, music + concerts | dead & company kick off farewell tour with a soaring show at the kia forum.

“I need a miracle,” read the signs held by dozens of fans outside the Kia before Dead & Company took the stage Friday for the first of two shows in Inglewood this weekend.

“I need a miracle.” It’s been Deadhead code for decades, long before Dead & Company brought three surviving members of the legendary San Francisco group together with singer-guitarist John Mayer in 2015 to keep the music of the Dead alive. In the parlance of the parking lot, it’s a prayer, a plea from the ticketless to the ticketed for a way into the show.

Now the miracles are running out. For Dead & Company, despite success enough to fill arenas and stadiums, this is the final tour. What began at the Forum on Friday and Saturday will end at Oracle Park in San Francisco on July 14-15.

John Mayer of Dead & Company performs on the first of two nights at the KIA Forum in Inglewood on Friday, May 19, 2023. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Contributing Photographer)

Mickey Hart of Dead & Company performs on the first of two nights at the KIA Forum in Inglewood on Friday, May 19, 2023. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Contributing Photographer)

Dead & Company performs on the first of two nights at the KIA Forum in Inglewood on Friday, May 19, 2023. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Contributing Photographer)

Bob Weir of Dead & Company performs on the first of two nights at the KIA Forum in Inglewood on Friday, May 19, 2023. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Contributing Photographer)

John Mayer of Dead & Company performs at the KIA Forum in Inglewood on Friday, May 19, 2023. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Contributing Photographer)

Jay Lane of Dead & Company performs on the first of two nights at the KIA Forum in Inglewood on Friday, May 19, 2023. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Contributing Photographer)

Dead & Company performs at the KIA Forum in Inglewood on Friday, May 19, 2023. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Contributing Photographer)

The band Mums The Word performs in the parking lot before Dead & Company’s first of two nights at the KIA Forum in Inglewood on Friday, May 19, 2023. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Contributing Photographer)

From left, long time Dead & Company fans Andy Bielanow and Clay Archer pose for a photograph before their performance at the KIA Forum in Inglewood on Friday, May 19, 2023. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Contributing Photographer)

Sunglasses available for purchase in the parking lot before Dead & Company’s performance at the KIA Forum in Inglewood on Friday, May 19, 2023. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Contributing Photographer)

From left, Wendy Calhoun, Nichole Banks and Allison Wolcott pose for a photograph before attending Dead & Company’s performance at the KIA Forum in Inglewood on Friday, May 19, 2023. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Contributing Photographer)

Bob Weir of Dead & Company performs at the KIA Forum in Inglewood on Friday, May 19, 2023. (Photo by Drew A. Kelley, Contributing Photographer)

What do you do when the end is nigh? For the Dead, you celebrate life, and that’s exactly what happened as the band played 18 songs in two sets over four glorious hours of music like only Dead & Company, and the Grateful Dead before them, can make.

Taking off: Set 1

“Shakedown Street,” the title track of the Dead’s 1978 album, kicked off the show, its laidback dance-beat rhythms getting the sold-out crowd onto their feet, dancing, hands aloft, chiming in on every “Woo!” in the song.

Guitarist Bobby Weir , 75, took lead vocals on this one. He and drummer Mickey Hart, 79, got huge cheers as their faces appeared on the video screens. With drummer Bill Kreutzmann, 77, choosing to sit out this tour, Weir and Hart are the last of the original Dead.

John Mayer, 45, a star in his own right before his love for the Dead led him to co-create Dead & Company, stood to Weir’s right, singing backing vocals on “Shakedown Street” before taking the first of many long, lyrical guitar solos that wove in and out of the jams laid down by the rest of the band – bassist Oteil Burbridge, keyboardist Jeff Chimenti, and drummer Jay Lane.

“Cold Rain and Snow,” a song from the Grateful Dead’s 1967 debut followed, done here with more of a funk feel than the country vibe of the original recording. This time Mayer sang lead, filling the vocal and instrumental role once played by the late Jerry Garcia.

Other highlights of the opening set included the rollicking “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo” and the slow blues of “They Love Each Other.” The fan favorite “St. Stephen,” at 20 minutes, the longest single song of the night, was gorgeous from start to finish, but especially an extended section where Weir and Mayer traded guitar licks back and forth.

Ninety minutes after it started, “Deal,” one of three songs pulled from Jerry Garcia’s 1972 solo debut “Garcia,” wrapped up the first set with a hard-rocking blues that showcased both Mayer’s similarities to Garcia as a musician – the lyrical beauty of his playing most of all – and his differences: He’s often got a heavy, harder edge to his sound.

Earlier in the parking lot

There’s no opening act for Dead & Company. You don’t really need one given the show that takes place hours before the concert on Shakedown Street, a vendor village that travels with the Dead from venue to venue selling, well, anything a Deadhead might want or need.

Tie-dyed T-shirts and other wearable merch filled many of the 100 or so booths on the Manchester Avenue border of the Kia Forum. You want something with a skull or a skeleton on it? They got you covered. Dancing bears, a nod to the Dead’s legendary soundman Owsley “Bear” Stanley, were another popular motif on everything from infant onesies to bucket hats made of hemp.

You may not be surprised to learn that other things are also on offer throughout the parking lot. From pot – duh, it’s legal here now – to mushroom-infused chocolate to giant balloons filled with nitrous oxide – laughing gas like your dentist used to give you, you could find it.

If you thought that hippies in the style of the Summer of Love were a thing of the past, a stroll down Shakedown Street would quickly change that idea.

Peaking: Set 2

“Sugaree,” another crowd favorite, opened the second set of the night, a gentler, rolling blues that demonstrated Chementi’s jaunty piano and Mayer’s ability to unleash long single-note licks that show off his technical chops without ever losing the emotional content of the song.

“New Speedway Boogie” gave fans a cut from the popular 1970 release “Workingman’s Dead,” with Weir’s gruff vocals meshing wonderfully with the chunk-a-chunk rhythms of the song. “Eyes of the World” clocked in at 18 minutes, enough time for everyone in the band to take a solo – Burbridge’s bass solo was particularly lovely – and enough time, too, to close your eyes and let the spotlights flash in random patterns on your eyelids as you felt the groove wash over you.

Dead & Company mix up the setlist from night to night more than most bands – most of Friday’s songs won’t be repeated on Saturday – but you are always going to get “Drums” and “Space,” two instrumental songs that for years have given the spotlight to Hart and Kreutzmann (or Lane on this tour) and also given a good number of fans to head for the bathroom or the bar.

Weir and Mayer eventually came back on stage to add guitars to the almost ambient music of “Space,” and then segue into “The Wheel” and “Wharf Rat,” the latter a highlight for Weir’s vocals in particular.

“Sugar Magnolia,” after “Shakedown Street” the song even the most casual fan would know in the show, closed out the main set with a sweet, upbeat glide through its lyrics and music. The only track in the set from 1970’s “American Beauty” album, it wrapped things up beautifully, with Weir’s shift into the “Sunshine Daydream” coda a perfect finish to the song.

“Thank you, you’re too kind,” Weir said on returning to the stage for the encore, and that was pretty much the extent of the stage banter on Friday. Why bother when you’ve got the music to speak for you, I suppose? “Black Muddy River,” a gorgeous Americana blues, delivered the encore, and then it was back to the parking lot, one less show on the road to the finish.

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A Requiem for the Dead

Dead and Company—the most successful and longest-running post-Jerry configuration of Grateful Dead members—has purportedly given up the road. We took one last trip to Shakedown Street to make sense of what it all meant and what it means if they’re done.

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The Grateful Dead have died many times. Depending on whom you ask, their first death came only a few years after their 1965 formation, as the raunchy organ jams and all-night raves of their psychedelic days gave way to statelier songwriting and more sophisticated playing. The transition was punctuated by the 1973 death of Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, the harmonica player and vocalist whose ability to command a room and yelp out blues ad-libs for half an hour on “Turn on Your Lovelight” made him an intensely personable figure; at one point, he was so recognizable, the band’s label ran a Pigpen look-alike contest. But as the Grateful Dead’s exploratory ethos inevitably led them to new territory and better drugs, Pigpen was left behind. He avoided psychedelics, drank bottle after bottle of wine, and stopped touring a few months before his death. Though Jerry Garcia was already the band’s intellectual center, Pigpen had been its major draw and frontman, until he wasn’t. His final show, at the Hollywood Bowl in 1972, marked the last time a truly charismatic singer performed Grateful Dead music with any of the band’s original members.

Until October 29, 2015. That was when Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir and drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann took the stage at Times Union Center in Albany, New York, for the first gig with their new guitarist and co-vocalist: John Mayer. The surviving members of the Grateful Dead have reconfigured themselves several times since Garcia’s 1995 death, playing under a variety of names both together (the Other Ones, Furthur, the Dead) and solo (Phil Lesh and Friends, Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros., RatDog). Plenty of guitarists have been put in the unenviable position of stepping into Garcia’s role as the band’s primary musical force, to varying degrees of success. But with all due respect to Warren Haynes, there has never been anyone quite like Mayer involved with this music before.

The Dead and Company lineup didn’t make immediate musical sense in 2015 and was, quite frankly, very funny for people who didn’t care about Mayer or the Dead. Enlisting Mayer, with his bankable face and blandly virtuosic blues-scorching style, seemed like an extraordinarily obvious cash grab and an artistically suspect decision; it seemed equally impossible to imagine Mayer fans wooking out to the red-eyed reggae of “Estimated Prophet” and crusty Deadheads savoring slicked-back versions of old Pigpen songs.

But over the course of eight years and 235 shows, Dead and Company performed several miracles. They lasted longer than any post-Garcia configuration of Grateful Dead members—a genuine feat considering the level of animosity and manipulation among those surviving players—and consistently played to crowds that rivaled those the Dead drew in the heady gate-crashing days of the late 1980s and early 1990s, when they were the biggest touring act in the country. Those bigger crowds in turn rekindled the parking-lot scene that has been part of Dead culture since the late 1970s at a scale not seen since the days of Garcia. Though they fastidiously refused to expand it, Dead and Company developed a genuinely new way of performing and presenting what is almost certainly the greatest and most dynamic songbook any American rock band has ever produced.

But perhaps most important, they maintained and ultimately solidified the legacy of the Grateful Dead—not so much as a band but as the originators of a distinct form. Though it may seem unlikely when artists of their generation are selling off their catalogs for nine digits, no rock band of any era will be remembered as fondly as them. Most musicians understand their primary medium to be the studio recording, which makes sense—you can maintain control in the studio, and the songs are placed on a gallery wall and can be admired like paintings. They are, essentially, finished. But by understanding their music as something that should be made fresh night after night for new fans, year after year and decade after decade, the Grateful Dead suggested that their songs are never complete. There is no final version; there’s not even a definitive live version.

In 2023, even the most proficient Beatles tribute acts are working the college-bar circuit, and it’s impossible to imagine anyone daring to take up the mantle of the Lennon-McCartney catalog with any credibility once Sir Paul calls it quits. But in 100 years, there will still be bands who are able to tour the country playing Grateful Dead music in new and inventive ways, bringing the old corpses to life once again, and there will be crowds eager to hear them do it. But I’m getting ahead of myself. These are all solidified thoughts, intellectual end points, and even if they’re where we’ll end up, there’s no telling how we’ll get there.

Which is, as you’ve probably heard, the whole point. I set out to see as many Dead and Company shows as I could this summer, ultimately catching 10 concerts in four states, from the warm-up at Jazz Fest to the three-night finale in San Francisco. I wasn’t in search of the true meaning of America or after any of the other very literary reasons people often give for going on the road; we have more than enough writing from white people who are trying to figure out why they don’t feel at home here. I am a Deadhead. I sigh as I say so, for I see the paisley-patterned connotations that spill out of that word the moment I type it. I was 9 years old when Garcia died, and my natural taste runs between slippery jazz and blackened death metal. But the music of the Grateful Dead has a hold on me that I cannot explain. I wanted to figure out why I’m not the only one.

The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival has run nearly every year since 1970, and it has almost always had terrible weather. There is really no good time to stage an outdoor festival in New Orleans, or at least not one that spans seven days of on-site performances over two weeks. For hours leading up to Dead and Company’s set on May 6, it rains hard—pelting, driving, tropical rain, the kind that obviates any rain gear—and, perversely for New Orleans at this time of year, it’s cold . I clutch my link of boudin and shiver, resigned to being physically miserable in a way that is at least novel, while my battle-hardened local friends and warm-blooded midwestern spouse laugh and place bets on what the band will open with. A shirtless guy in a crumbling cowboy hat wanders past selling enamel pins of the Steal Your Face skull and lightning bolt logo (a.k.a. the Stealie), the Terrapin Station turtles, and Garcia’s Wolf logo. I mention to him that I’d seen him at the Hollywood Bowl in the past and ask whether he still has any of his “Gayer for Mayer” pins. He shakes his head and tells me he’s out of “Queer for Weir,” too.

Then, finally, with very little fanfare, Dead and Company wander onto the stage. Drummer Jay Lane, a one-time member of Primus and frequent Weir collaborator, has replaced Bill Kreutzmann. Decked in an Ancient Aliens T-shirt, he takes his place behind the kit as Weir and Mayer play a few tentative sideways notes. They resolve into “Truckin’,” and the clouds part, and the rain stops, and the sun shines. I know how unlikely that sounds; all I can tell you is that it’s true.

“Truckin’” is the final song on 1970’s American Beauty , which is, alongside the same year’s Workingman’s Dead , the Grateful Dead’s high-water mark as a studio band. Both albums are filled with country tunes with deceptively complex chord changes, stacked harmonies that defy the individual singers’ occasionally pitchy individual performances, and a rustic charm that feels more attainable than, say, the baroque folk-pop of their friends in Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. Every song on both albums feels like it could have been written in the 19th century.

Dead and Company play “Cumberland Blues” at Jazz Fest. They play it again in Phoenix a few weeks later, and again in Bristow, Virginia, and at Wrigley Field. They cannot stop playing “Cumberland Blues” on this tour. It’s fairly straightforward, at least for a Dead song: a two-stepping shuffle that moves a touch faster than the rhythm seems to be comfortable with. The music is a nice mirror of the narrator’s exhaustion after being kept up all hours of the night by his beloved Melinda, who seems not to respect the physical and emotional rigors of his life in the mine. The narrator pointedly does not want to dance—or whatever else Melinda’s trying to get him into. But the song doesn’t care, and throughout the summer, the band seems to side more and more with Melinda. Dead and Company long ago developed a reputation in the wider Deadhead community for their slackened tempo—Dead and Slow, they’re called—but all tour, they play the song at a blistering pace that they’ve never even tried before. Mayer reels off lines in the breaks, getting notes out like he’s bailing out a boat. By the time they get to San Francisco in mid-July, “Cumberland Blues” has transformed from a lovely bit of electric bluegrass into a country dervish, a spinning, hyper-rotating hurricane of a song. This early performance in New Orleans is the first indication that—whether because of the addition of Lane or the stakes of the tour itself—the band is finding new life in the material.

If you consider yourself a discerning music person, the kind who has to call themselves a “music person” instead of a “fan,” it’s easy to get into Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty . All you need is a general appreciation for sturdy songs and a willingness not to think too much about how much Marcus Mumford probably likes them. But to get into the band’s live tapes—and thus into the essence not only of the Grateful Dead but of Dead and Company, as well—is much more difficult. You have to listen to a lot of 1950s rock covers. You have to listen to a lot of George Jones songs sung by someone who isn’t George Jones. You have to be able to look at a track list, see a 12:57 version of “Dancing in the Streets,” and have faith that whatever’s on the other side of the first two and a half minutes will be worth hearing Weir sing a disco version of a soul song.

I came to the Dead as a music person. I was going to pop-up record sales and buying rare Brazilian vinyl. I had a granular understanding of the modal differences between East African and West African music; I could typically tell whether a song had been recorded in Mali. I was “not really interested in the guitar anymore.” Most important, I was listening to a lot of Herbie Hancock and a lot of Can. In the mid-1970s, the jazz heavyweight and the free-spirited German weirdos were both pursuing a form of funk music that rippled with grooves and dissolved into space. You could dance to it, but it could also catch you up the way driving through the mountains sometimes does: You keep moving, but your mind is suddenly still.

At the same historical moment, the Grateful Dead were in pursuit of the same kind of sound. There are versions of “Dancing in the Streets” and especially Weir’s “Playing in the Band” from the mid-’70s that pulse and shimmer, where all sense of the original melody and tone has been completely scraped away and the band is intently exploring the foundation on which it was built. Kreutzmann liked to say that his goal as a drummer wasn’t to keep time but to keep mood, and once you begin to tune in to the mood that’s being cultivated by any form of the Dead, their ability to find new ways of expressing it becomes astonishing. The jam that leads “Scarlet Begonias” into “Fire on the Mountain” on the May 8, 1977, tape—probably the band’s most famous jam—is mind-boggling at a technical level; there are moments in which all five musicians seem to be playing both songs at once. But it’s no less admirable for the way it sustains a feeling of buoyancy, of pleasant surprise, of a seemingly unlimited number of happily beguiling opportunities around every corner.

You have enough moments like this, and you eventually find yourself through the looking glass. You become someone who appreciates how the zapping laser of Garcia’s guitar gooses Weir’s vocal in “Dancing in the Streets,” who dreams about cracking open a few cold ones and listening to “El Paso.” You might completely forget that the thing that got you into this music was the wild-eyed, experimental nature of it. When you sing along in full throat to “U.S. Blues” with tens of thousands of people who aren’t aware or don’t care that the original band was being ironic when it sang the “wave that flag” chorus, you’ve come a long way toward being cured of the need to use music as a way to differentiate yourself. The appeal becomes simple: It feels good to drink beers in the daytime and sing songs with your spouse and your friends and fall in love with a band. And then you watch them spend 15 minutes turning “Bird Song” inside out until it feels like tissue-paper-soft jazz, and you look around and go, My God, there are 40,000 people at Mayer’s experimental music concert .

L.A.! The Fabulous Forum! Where Magic and Kareem went back-to-back! Where Nicholson was always courtside! Where Harry Styles went on a run of 15 sold-out shows, as the only banner hanging from the rafters proclaims! Outside, half the city of Los Angeles is crammed into the narrow channel of Shakedown Street, the vendor market that runs through the parking lot and is as ubiquitous a sight at Dead shows as tie-dye. (It is, in fact, the source of much of that tie-dye.) And onstage, Mayer is making his guitar twinkle and hum; he’s going textural and pursuing blue moods. Yes, he’s ripping a few mondo solos and making the faces as he does so. You can only redeem so much of a man.

Dead and Company would not be playing to this many people this often if Mayer weren’t onstage. But his celebrity doesn’t solely account for the group’s swelling popularity. In 2016, the first full Dead and Company trek made $29.4 million, according to industry standard keeper Pollstar, good for only the 59th-highest-grossing tour worldwide. By 2021, they took in $50.2 million and finished fifth, one spot below the Eagles and two above Guns N’ Roses—even though they didn’t even leave the United States. Were Mayer’s name the driving force behind ticket sales, you’d expect them to have been higher at the outset, before the novelty of seeing a superstar slumming it with wooks had worn off.

Instead, his image allowed the band to more easily capitalize on the momentum created by the 2015 Fare Thee Well concerts, in which Weir, Hart, and Kreutzmann performed for the last time with bassist Phil Lesh. Dead and Company entered the world as both a curiosity and an excuse to keep the party going, but the strong performances—and the response from aging Gen X Deadheads starved for the massive stakes of the Grateful Dead’s late ’80s and early ’90s run—instantly made them into something bigger.

When the band was put together in early 2015, Mayer was only a couple of years removed from the lowest days of his career. In 2010, he’d given an interview to Playboy in which he called his ex-girlfriend Jessica Simpson “crack cocaine,” used the n-word, and compared his penis to David Duke. (His heart, though? “Benetton.”) In 2011, he was swimming in his pool and heard the knotty, questioning, guarded opening riff of the Grateful Dead’s “Althea” on Pandora. As he tells it, he sprinted into the house sopping wet to find out what he was hearing.

“Althea” didn’t cure Mayer—the next year he’d give another infamous interview, this one to Rolling Stone , in which his claim to be able to hold his breath for four minutes and 17 seconds was probably the least noteworthy tidbit—but it did set him on a new path. In that same piece, Eric Clapton called Mayer a “bedroom” guitarist and said, “I wasn’t sure if John was aware of the power of playing with other people.” Perhaps aware he was supposed to be burnishing the younger player’s image, he added, “Though I think he is now.” The power of playing with other people is central to what makes the music of the Grateful Dead work. Garcia knew this intuitively. Though he possessed the skills to shred, he rarely did. His playing was rarely showy. Rather than draw attention to himself, he stoked the flames of what his bandmates were doing, hinting at directions they might take together or else allowing himself to soak in the mood they had collectively created. Every line seemed to end in a question mark; he didn’t make assertions, he made suggestions.

This is only part of the reason Garcia became an icon to many. Despite the Grateful Dead’s sunshine-daydream image in the popular mind, their music is deeply suffused with pain and confusion. Robert Hunter’s lyrics feint toward salvation without being able to offer it, and they’re deeply informed by the fact that each individual is ultimately responsible for navigating the fog of life. “If I knew the way, I would take you home,” goes the band’s defining statement, from “Ripple.” The scholar Brent Wood surveyed the band’s lyrics and discovered that about three-fourths of the songs Garcia sang are about suffering, and a full half of those songs are about death. Garcia played guitar in a way that perpetuated these feelings—the persistent reality of pain and the desire to find a little happiness anyway are both present in so much of what he did. With Dead and Company, Weir allows the songs to move more slowly, until the jams begin to take on an almost painterly quality. When it works, the jam becomes as much a part of the story as the lyrics, a sigh of emotion spontaneously exhaled by the six guys onstage.

It took Mayer a moment to understand how he fit into the music; witness him trying to play roadhouse blues in the twilit silence of a “Space” jam in 2015. But as he found his footing, and particularly as he developed his musical relationship with keyboardist Jeff Chimenti, his ability to meet the songs on their own terms deepened. “I’ve always said that if I’m doing my job right, I bring the crowd closer to the music they love while disappearing from the equation a little bit,” he wrote on Instagram a few days before the Forum shows. Indeed, it’s a minor miracle that his star power vanishes the moment he steps onstage, where he appears to be just some dude in an expensive-looking T-shirt and with very bad tattoos. While the jokes about 17-minute versions of “Your Body Is a Wonderland” never subside from some corners of the Dead world, by the time the 2023 tour arrived, Mayer was fully integrated into the cosmos. There have been “John Mayer Is Dead to Me” shirts on the lot for years. In San Francisco, I see one that says, simply and provocatively and sincerely, “He is my Jerry.”

Onstage at the Forum, he’s restrained and tasteful. He plays “Althea” as if he, too, is awed by the oracle at the song’s center, and by the oracle the song has been for him. It’s not hard to understand why. The titular character functions as a mirror for the narrator, telling him he’s been “honest to the point of recklessness” and “self-centered in the extreme.” He says he’s “lacking in some direction,” that “treachery” is “tearing me limb from limb.” “Ain’t nobody messing with you but you,” Althea tells him, and the truth cools his head.

The most commonly asked question on tour: “Where is Shakedown Street?” Named for the Dead’s disco-funk song, it’s ostensibly a tailgate, but that descriptor is wildly insufficient. The most common answer, also taken from the song: “You just gotta poke around.”

This is probably true in some places. In New York, at Citi Field, you do not have to poke around. Shakedown Street pokes you. It is impossible to miss, taking over a fenced-in parking lot under the elevated train tracks across the street from the stadium. Dozens of people are pushing through the narrow gate at all times, and instantly they’re surrounded by people with ice chests selling domestics, microbrews, White Claws, you name it for $5 a can. Grills hiss in the distance. Nitrous tanks hiss nearby. Balloons pop constantly. “Mushrooms, K, acid” is whispered loudly by dudes making conspicuous eye contact. A sign advertises BULK FEMINIZED SEEDS in bold type. There’s a booth selling Jerry rolls, which seem to be some kind of sandwich and not a drug. Everyone has their own version of grilled cheese: vegan cheese, gluten-free bread, but no sight of the guy from 2022 who promised “bacon in every motherfucking bite.” From every direction, tapes of old Dead shows—both Grateful Dead and Dead and Company—blast from portable stereos and car sound systems.

People started selling things in the parking lots at Grateful Dead shows as early as 1973, author Jesse Jarnow reports in Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America , around the same time they started following the band on tour. It makes sense: sell a few limp burritos, make enough money to get to the next show. By the 1980s, Shakedown became its own attraction, as its cheery lawlessness drew in crowds of college students anxious to party, runaways escaping the latchkey lifestyle, white kids with dreads claiming their parents still lived in Babylon, and genuine Deadheads, too. The psychologist Joseph Campbell, who lived next door to Weir, once took in the parking-lot scene in Oakland and declared it an “antidote for the atom bomb.” By 1989, it had expanded so much it made the Dead unwelcome in places they’d played for years, with riots and general mayhem leading the band to prohibit vending outside gigs. Did it work? Come on.

There is much to buy on Shakedown Street. Not just drugs, though definitely drugs. There are crystal sellers whose wares have gone dusty from years of exactly this, and those who are selling fragile $1,000 specimens that should probably not be out on a folding table with this many wasted people around. There are head-shop-quality patches and pins tacked to a corkboard. A guy calling himself Grateful Fred is selling metallic plaques of Dead iconography you can put on your trunk to make it look like Toyota is offering up a limited-edition Wookmobile; he has the hatchback door of a brand-new Volkswagen set up in his booth so that you can see how they look in situ.

But mostly there is versioning. In the same way that a dub producer takes the elements of a traditional reggae track and reframes it into something more wigged out, artists have been fucking with the iconography of the Grateful Dead and selling it back to Deadheads for decades. A pre-fame Keith Haring sold shirts on the lot in 1977, his characteristic line work already apparent in the doodles that fill the blank space in the Stealie. A guy calling himself New Springfield Boogie exclusively makes merch that references both the Dead and The Simpsons , and with the charisma of Lyle Lanley selling Springfield on the Monorail , he gleefully shares the names of his creations. Homer disappearing into the roses of the band’s Bertha skeleton is given the “St. Stephen”–referencing title “In and Out of the Garden He Goes.”

Anything worn onstage by Mayer gets a boost. In 2022, an official shirt designed by bootlegger Jeremy Dean with a dancing bear face and the word “California” in a straightforward script was sold out before the end of the first set at the first show of the tour. When I ask one vendor how many of his $80 sweatshirts (which have a BMW logo in the Stealie) he sold after John wore one in June, he demurs, telling me only, “A lot.” I ask another vendor whether he’s concerned the band will force him to stop selling his shirts, which violate the only enforced rule of vending by having the words “Dead and Company” on them. He laughs and tells me he’ll just text Mayer and have him sort it out.

This is commerce, plain and simple, and there are obvious points to be made about the co-opting of the counterculture and the frenzy of consumerism. Dead and Company themselves certainly aren’t shy about accruing capital. But in the moment, as the beers flow and the trips come on, it feels like a convincing illusion of everything Heads project onto the band: freedom, joy, bright abandon. Unlike at a sporting event, there is no sense of aggression because there is no opponent. Unlike at a mass church gathering, there is no sense of propriety or even reverence; the enthusiasm is ungated. At least until the sun goes down and the chemicals start to curdle, it is a bright, warm—druggy, paranoid—dream, the California ideal appearing like a mirage in the heart of New York City.

We spend two days at the Gorge, mostly sitting in a scrap of shade beneath what must be the only row of trees in all of eastern Washington, and the view never begins to seem real. Maybe you’ve seen pictures of the scenic natural amphitheater on the other side of the Cascades from Seattle and wondered what it’s like to see a show there. It is beyond picturesque. It is difficult—genuinely difficult—to take it all in. The stage is placed perfectly, right in a crook of the Columbia River, and for the first set of both nights, before the sun goes down, it is more or less impossible to pay attention to the band onstage. The rugged cliff faces and soft turns in the landscape are the only things around that look older and more weathered than Weir.

Other than the surprisingly robust cell service, there is nothing convenient about the Gorge. It’s literally in the middle of nowhere, equally remote from Seattle and Spokane. Getting in Thursday night takes three hours owing to increased security. The campsites, where thousands of Deadheads are posted up from Thursday night through Sunday morning, are a rugged mile or so trek from the entrance to the amphitheater itself. Even though the venue is nearly 40 years old, there are no permanent bathrooms.

The heat is so bad on Night 1, the band seems to check itself. They cut their tempo and ease their way through the songs, whether to discourage ecstatic dance in the crowd or to ensure they make it through the evening themselves. We are near the end of the road now, a week from the end of the tour, and everyone seems to be slightly distracted by that knowledge. Weed smoke clings to the ground as the sun pours into the amphitheater.

After the show, Shakedown stays open late. There are multiple bands playing in the campground, one of them working on a pacy jam that sounds like it’s on its way toward a Talking Heads song. In the morning, there are what appear to be Hare Krishnas playing a trance remix of chant music with live finger-cymbal accompaniment. I wander into Shakedown in search of iced coffee and find two kids in their 20s playing guitar, working their way through the Dead’s “Estimated Prophet” with no vocals, just wavering in the heat vision of one of Weir’s best songs. Someone is advertising a yoga retreat “for Deadheads ONLY” in Costa Rica. Another guy is hawking some kind of Dead-adjacent red wine despite the temperature. “What a long, strange trip it’s been for these grapes,” he cries. “But they’re here now, and so are you.”

So are we. “At this point, two and a half months in[to the tour], I’m exhausted,” Michael Koppinger Jr. tells me the next weekend in San Francisco. Koppinger is a vendor in his early 20s who went to his first show in Raleigh in 2018, was given LSD by a friendly beer salesperson before he even made it to Shakedown, and never looked back. “It blew my mind,” he says. “I was raised Catholic and in this strict upbringing and culture. If people did drugs, it was like, you were bad. So to just be in a space where you could do whatever and it was normalized, it kinda blew my shit.” He printed up his first shirt in 2021, with plans to sell a hundred or so over a weekend run, then come home. Instead, he pulled out of a plan to buy a house with his (now ex-)girlfriend, put everything he owned in his parents’ attic, and split. “I’ve been on the road pretty much since,” he tells me.

Besides the profound bodily exhaustion, the biggest struggle of being a touring Deadhead in 2023 is scraping together gas money. “Once you get to Shakedown, you can make things work,” Koppinger says. “You can get into the show, you can get fed, you can get a drink. The community takes care of itself. But getting show to show, spot to spot, it’s rough.” As they cross the country, Heads panhandle for gas money, pile into the backs of buses and sleep in piles, and do what it takes to get to the next show. “I don’t live in this amount of love and community in everyday life,” Koppinger says. “In 2023 America, alienated, atomized, no one does.”

It is easy to get caught up in this. Even as I roast away in Washington, I’m clinging to what remains of this tour, of the fiction that you can simply zone out of everyday life in the name of having a good time and bring the people you love with you. Nobody knows where this energy will go next summer, whether to jam upstarts Goose or to bluegrass hero Billy Strings or, as it did in ’95, back to Phish. What’s certain is that it won’t be destroyed, even if it transmutes. Even if it lies dormant.

Nobody believes that what happens on tour or at a Dead show is a truly sustainable lifestyle. Like the music itself, it’s ephemeral, being created and destroyed in the same moment. It takes up space in real life, but it exists outside it, in the carnivalesque. The trick, when it all finally ends, is to remember that and not get rolled up in the tent when the circus leaves town.

But first, we have to go to San Francisco.

There are many rumors. The obvious ones involve the last living members of the Grateful Dead who aren’t in Dead and Company: Lesh is going to sit in. Background vocalist Donna-Jean Godchaux will step in to sing. Kreutzmann will join in for “Drums” (Billy himself stokes the last one by tweeting, “You know what would be cool …” a week before the final show; he never elaborates). Bob Dylan toured with the Grateful Dead in 1987 and has been covering “Brokedown Palace” lately, plus he has a break in his tour. Neil Young is in the area and has a conspicuous hole in his itinerary, too. Some people shoot for the stars and insist Paul McCartney will come out for the twinned covers of Traffic’s “Dear Mr. Fantasy” and “Hey Jude.”

In the end, none of this happens. Dead and Company set up in center field at Oracle Park and play six sets over three nights, about 10 hours of music, with no repeats. When they launch into “Bertha” to open Night 3, there is a prickling in the air. Bassist Oteil Burbridge’s wife has painted Garcia’s famous four-fingered handprint onto her husband’s face, and when the cameras focus on him during a cover of the Rascals’ “Good Lovin’,” the roar from the crowd is staggering. There have been so many big-time Dead shows in stadiums like this, and in the fresh daylight and cool early-evening San Francisco breeze, time collapses, and it feels like we’re inside each and every one of those shows; I’m fully conscious of the fact that for something to be timeless, it has to exit time, it has to die.

Weir was 16 when he joined the Grateful Dead. He grew up in Garcia’s shadow and never grew out of it. Garcia gained a kind of gravitas as he aged, even as heroin and diabetes ravaged his body and made him look 20 years older than he was. Weir courted silliness, wearing polo shirts tucked tidily into very small jean shorts. The Spinners, a religious movement that sprung up around the band and gained enough traction to warrant serious anthropological study, took as dogma what many fans felt: “Jerry Garcia is sacred and Bobby Weir is profane,” as Jarnow sums it up in Heads .

Another thing: “Bobby Weir makes me weep,” Jarnow tells me over Zoom one afternoon. He makes me weep, too. Somehow, in his old age, Weir has become a stately presence, a figure of poise. He carries with him the entire history of the counterculture, and he seems to feel its weight. When he sings Marty Robbins’s “El Paso” or Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried,” he inhabits the weariness of longing and guilt. There are Garcia songs that, thanks to age and wisdom or maybe just sheer repetition, Weir sings better than Jerry ever did: Witness him reel off the names of Billy Sunday and Jack the Ripper in “Ramble on Rose.” He sings with a far-off focus, as powerful and distant as a spaceship cruising through the cosmos. On Night 2 in San Francisco, he sings the postapocalyptic “Morning Dew” drenched in green light, his voice ragged and heartbroken as he surveys what’s left of the world after it ends.

Weir didn’t write the majority of the Grateful Dead’s best songs. “Ripple,” “Eyes of the World,” “Terrapin Station,” “Brokedown Palace,” “Sugaree,” “Althea”—they’re all Garcia’s. But over the 30 years they played together, Weir gained a better understanding of how those songs worked than anyone else possibly could. When he plays them, it’s hard to argue that they’re not in some way his.

The Grateful Dead keep dying. And regardless of whether Dead and Company are truly done right now, they will die one day, too. (Mayer set off a firestorm online by saying Dead and Company is “still a band—we just don’t know what the next show will be” a couple of days after the last show at Oracle Park; theories abound.) But written into the music is the notion that songs themselves don’t need their creators to live. This is hardly revolutionary in the world of jazz, where standards frequently outlive the people who wrote them, or in classical music, where most composers are incapable of performing their own works in the first place. But in rock ’n’ roll, where the cult of authenticity insists that meaning comes mostly in creation, rarely in interpretation, the music and ethos of the Dead are an anomaly. Dead and Company are far from the only group keeping this music alive, but Weir, convinced of the power of the songs as forms of expression and not simply vehicles for dancing or virtuosity or even experimentation, frames his band’s catalog with the dignity it deserves.

It is but one way of keeping the Dead alive. There are so many ways to express yourself, so many paths into and out of this music. Everyone has the right to desire their own expansion, to test their edges and see what else they might be able to contain. I see so many people on Dead tours who can’t possibly dress this way in their everyday lives. On tour, or at the one show they can afford to hit, or watching the livestream at home, or catching some local Dead band struggle through the “Slipknot!” changes, Deadheads enact the answer to a simple problem. The alienation we all feel is real and unavoidable. What if we learned to understand it as good?

Sadie Sartini Garner has written music criticism for Pitchfork , The A.V. Club , The Outline , and many other places. She lives in Long Beach, California, with her partner Rachelle.

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John Mayer 2023 Solo Tour schedule

A complete calendar featuring all of John Mayer’s upcoming tour dates, venues and links to buy tickets can be found below.

Dead and Company 2023 tour schedule

As noted earlier, Mayer will sing with Dead and Company on their Farewell Tour and then that’s it for the legendary classic rock group.

Made up of original Grateful Dead members Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzman and Mickey Hart as well as a few others, they handed the reins to Mayer in 2015 when they performed live together for the first time.

This summer, when they say goodbye, they’ll kick things off at New Orleans’ annual New Orleans Jazz Festival where they’ll headline alongside big names like Lizzo , Ed Sheeran , Santana , The Lumineers and Robert Plant with Alison Krauss.

When the proper tour begins, they’ll jam in cities like Los Angeles ( May 19 , May 20 ), Chicago ( June 9 , June 10 ), Philadelphia ( June 15 ), Saratoga Springs, NY ( June 17 , June 18 ) and Boston ( June 24 , June 25 ).

Their last shows will take place June 14 , June 15 and June 16 at San Francisco’s Oracle Park.

A complete calendar featuring all Dead and Company tour dates, venues, show start times and links to buy tickets can be found here .

John Mayer Solo Tour opening acts

Although Mayer’s tour is called “Solo,” he will bring at least one support act to each and every show.

While we don’t know who one of them is yet — they’re listed as “Special Guest TBA” — here’s what we can tell you about his confirmed special guests that will be appearing on select dates.

Lizzy McAlpine , 23, dropped out of the Berklee College of Music in her junior year. Thus far, t seems to have worked out for the folk-jazz-pop star. Her 2020 debut studio album “Give Me A Minute” drew raves from critics and led to a headlining tour of her own. Don’t know where to start? We recommend her wistful single “To The Mountains.”

Alec Benjamin is in the Spotify Billion Club. The Arizona native’s mega single “Let Me Down Slowly” has been streamed over 1.2 billion times at the time of publication. He’s no one-trick pony though. Benjamin, 28, has a whopping six additional singles with over 100 million streams. Try his 2018 debut album “Narrated For You” for a sample of his charming, poppy sound.

Huge concert tours in 2023

Mayer’s tour was announced the same day his ex Taylor Swift dropped the music video for “Lavender Haze.”

Coincidence? Revenge? Friendly competition?

What we do know is that many exciting tours are headed to venues all over North America over the next few months.

Here are just five can’t-miss tours that may be coming to a city near you soon.

• Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

• Taylor Swift

• Blink 182

• Paramore

• Ed Sheeran

You made it to the end. Congratulations!

As a bonus, here’s our list of 52 of the biggest concert tours in 2023 — you earned it.

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By 97.1FM The Drive | October 6, 2022

Dead & company confirms dates for 2023 farewell trek, the final tour.

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Last month, Dead & Company announced that they were planning to launch a 2023 tour that would be their last trek ever, and now, the Grateful Dead spinoff group has unveiled the dates for the outing.

The 27-date U.S. outing, appropriately dubbed The Final Tour, will kick off with a May 19-20 stand at the Kia Forum near Los Angeles and is plotted out through a July 14-15 engagement at San Francisco’s Oracle Park. The band also will play multiple shows in several other cities, including Saratoga Springs, New York; New York City; Boulder, Colorado; and George, Washington.

Each concert will feature Dead & Company performing two sets of music from the Grateful Dead’s expansive catalog.

Tickets for the shows go on sale to the general public Friday, October 14 at 10 a.m. local time via DeadandCompany.com . A fan presale will begin Wednesday, October 12 at 12 p.m. local time. Advanced presale registration is available now at Seated.com.

Special VIP and travel packages will also go on sale on October 12 and can be purchased at DeadandCompany.100xhospitality.com .

While on the farewell trek, the band will continue its sustainability partnership with the nonprofit organization REVERB . They’ve committed to a comprehensive carbon offset program while also encouraging fans to take action to help the environment.

Formed in 2015, Dead & Company features Grateful Dead alums Bob Weir , Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann , along with popular singer/guitarist John Mayer , ex- Allman Brothers Band bassist Oteil Burbridge and RatDog keyboardist Jeff Chimenti . Their most recent tour was last year.

A 2023 edition of the band’s Playing in the Sand destination festival is set to take place in Riviera Cancún, Mexico from January 14 to January 17.

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The popular offshoot of the Grateful Dead will play their last performances together in 2023.

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Dead and Company , the popular offshoot for 1970s icons the Grateful Dead , have announced that they will be calling it quits, following a final set of live performances in 2023.

READ MORE: Watch: Nine Inch Nails Reunite With Former Members At Cleveland Concert

Dead and Company made the announcement on Friday (23 September) while that their final trek will take place in the Summer of 2023. A full list of dates for the trek is set to be released.

“As we put the finishing touches on booking venues, and understanding that word travels fast, we wanted to be the first to let you know that Dead and Company will be hitting the road next summer for what will be our final tour,” said the band said in a statement on Instagram.

“Stay tuned for a full list of dates for what will surely be an exciting, celebratory, and heartfelt last run of shows.”

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Dead & Company (@deadandcompany)

Initially founded in 2015, the band includes longtime members from the Grateful Dead: Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart, alongside Grammy-winning musician John Mayer .

Dead and Company began after Mayer guest hosted an edition of The Late Late Show in 2015, where he invited Bob Weir to join him in a studio performance.

The band toured annually, often using their shows to voice solidarity with a variety of social causes, including support for abortion rights .

Last year, the band shot down rumours circulating online that they were ending after their Summer tour 2022.

Guitarist Bob Weir has hinted that fans have no need to mourn the loss of the band. In a tweet , the musician implied that he and his fellow members intend to continue playing out “in one form or another until we drop”

Well it looks like that’s it for this outfit; but don’t worry we will all be out there in one form or another until we drop… pic.twitter.com/3RZzLRXBYI — Bobby Weir (@BobWeir) September 23, 2022

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“This is the Super Bowl of trips for the lifelong Dead Heads”: John Mayer and Dead & Company are officially returning for a 6-week residency at the MSG Sphere

Mayer help will lead a Grateful Dead-honoring residency at the world's most futuristic venue in Las Vegas this summer, months after the supergroup's farewell tour

Dead & Ccompany MSH Sphere Residency 2024

John Mayer quoted the Grateful Dead’s track Throwing Stones as he announced that Dead & Company will return to the stage for a six-week residency at the MSG Sphere in Las Vegas.

A total of 18 shows between May 16 and June 22 will see John Mayer and former Grateful Dead members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart return to the stage. The news, which will be a delightful shock to many, comes despite the band having previously stated that 2023's extensive run of dates would be their last.

“Picture a bright blue ball just spinning, spinning free. Dizzy with eternity,” Mayer's post begins, announcing the residency at the ultra-futuristic, 18,600-capacity arena. The band follows in the steps of U2, who called the venue home for a 40-show residency celebrating Achtung Baby last year.

Reacting to the post, once commenter claimed: “This is the Super Bowl of trips for the lifelong Dead Heads.”

The Grateful Dead offshoot had made its 'final' show a major spectacle last year, with a 22-song set including classics Truckin' and Brokedown Palace , as well as a passionate performance of Buddy Holly's Not Fade Away . Under the immersive 360-degree experience of the MSG Sphere, which is the largest spherical structure on the planet, the band will surely leave that extravaganza paling in comparison.

A post shared by John Mayer (@johnmayer) A photo posted by on

John Mayer formed Dead & Company back in 2015, with the band’s touring line-up completed by Oteil Burbridge, Jay Lane, and Jeff Chimenti. Mayer had become obsessed with the Grateful Dead back in 2011 after discovering the song Althea on Pandora. His 2012 album, Born and Raised carried that obsession, with a "subtle but abundant" array of 'Dead influences.

After just shy of a decade of success, the band had supposedly played its swan song at that San Francisco date last summer, which capped off a tour that entertained 840,000 Grateful Dead and Mayer fans.

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As such, it's shaping up to be another busy year for Mayer, who had an especially action-packed 2023. Last year saw the guitarist embark on an acoustic tour , which saw him test-drive new material, and reprise his blues power trio for the first time in six years.

The MSG Sphere, meanwhile, is doing its best to become the eighth wonder of the modern world. Officially opened in September 2023 after a four-year construction, beneath its dome fans are treated to an immersive 16k experience delivered by its wraparound LED screens, space-age audio tech and 4D physical effects.

Screenings of Director Darren Aronofsky's docu-film, Postcard from Earth , followed U2's grand opening residency, for which the Edge revealed he'd ditched tube amps . Instead, he opted for Universal Audio amp emulator pedals, with the chosen trio replicating the characteristics of a ‘55 Fender 5E3 Deluxe Tweed, Vox AC30 and AC30 Top Boost, and ‘65 Fender Deluxe Reverb.

Advance presale registration for the Dead & Company residency is now available. Tickets go on general sale February 9 at 10am PT.

For more information, head to DeadandCompany.com .

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A freelance writer with a penchant for music that gets weird, Phil is a regular contributor to Prog , Guitar World , and Total Guitar magazines and is especially keen on shining a light on unknown artists. Outside of the journalism realm, you can find him writing angular riffs in progressive metal band, Prognosis , in which he slings an 8-string Strandberg Boden Original, churning that low string through a variety of tunings. He's also a published author and is currently penning his debut novel which chucks fantasy, mythology and humanity into a great big melting pot.

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Dead & Company’s tour to hit Noblesville June 27

It’s a good time to be a Hoosier Deadhead . Dead & Company has announced its final tour with their current arrangement, with a performance at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, June 27 at Ruoff Music Center in Noblesville, Indiana.

Dead & Company is a band made up of former members of Grateful Dead , including Bob Weir and Mickey Hart. Additional members include Oteil Burbridge, Jeff Chimenti, Jay Lane and John Mayer. This arrangement of the band in particular has been playing together since 2015.

The band exclusively covers songs by Grateful Dead. Although they have no studio albums released, they have an extensive collection of live albums from their years of touring.

Grateful Dead is known for their improvisational style with elements of bluegrass, rock and roll, and folk. Dead & Company continues to embody this jam band style with their performances today.

Dead & Company has been able to successfully maintain the type of fan base seen with Grateful Dead with their audience becoming a distinguishing part of the band’s culture. Some fans even travel and live with the band throughout entire tours. The commitment and loyalty of the Deadheads is visible at all of their concerts.

Outside of many of the venues, originating at Grateful Dead shows, traveling fans and vendors hang out and sell all kinds of products to concert goers. This area has been dubbed “ Shakedown Street ,” named after the 1978 Grateful Dead album.

The atmosphere at their shows is truly one of a kind. Fans range anywhere from supporters since the band’s start in 1965 to newer generations of Deadheads. There is plenty of dancing, singing and a strong sense of community across the sea of fans.

The concert in Noblesville is hosted at an outdoor venue, with open lawn seating for general admission and covered seating closer to the stage. The famous Shakedown Street takes place on the venue’s property, between the gravel parking lot and the gates to get into Ruoff.

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Dead and Company's John Mayer, Bill Kreutzmann and Bob Weir

Photo: C Flanigan/FilmMagic

Dead & Company With John Mayer Announce Summer Tour Dates

This summer Mayer joins Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann for more Dead & Company shows

Tickets go on sale Jan. 26 for a 19-city summer tour of Dead & Company, bringing together former Grateful Dead members, John Mayer and more for a tour this summer. These legendary musicians will be live beginning on May 30 in Mansfield, Mass. and continuing through both coasts and the Midwest to its last date on July 14 in Boulder, Colo.

For John Mayer, playing with these legends enhances the credit he continues to amass toward furthering his prowess as a master guitarist, an ambition he has confessed since 2010 . The only thing that has been able to stop him from going on with the show was having to get his appendix taken out last December.

Founding Grateful Dead members, singer/songwriter and guitarist Bob Weir and singer and bass player Phil Lesh recently announced 6 tour dates in March . While Phil Lesh is not a member of Dead & Company and will not be there, other Grateful Dead members in the band are drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann. Their line-up also includes keyboardist Jeff Chimenti and the bass-playing multi-instrumentalist and GRAMMY winner Oteil Burbridge .

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Photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

GRAMMY Rewind: Kendrick Lamar Honors Hip-Hop's Greats While Accepting Best Rap Album GRAMMY For 'To Pimp a Butterfly' In 2016

Upon winning the GRAMMY for Best Rap Album for 'To Pimp a Butterfly,' Kendrick Lamar thanked those that helped him get to the stage, and the artists that blazed the trail for him.

Updated Friday Oct. 13, 2023 to include info about Kendrick Lamar's most recent GRAMMY wins, as of the 2023 GRAMMYs.

A GRAMMY veteran these days, Kendrick Lamar has won 17 GRAMMYs and has received 47 GRAMMY nominations overall. A sizable chunk of his trophies came from the 58th annual GRAMMY Awards in 2016, when he walked away with five — including his first-ever win in the Best Rap Album category.

This installment of GRAMMY Rewind turns back the clock to 2016, revisiting Lamar's acceptance speech upon winning Best Rap Album for To Pimp A Butterfly . Though Lamar was alone on stage, he made it clear that he wouldn't be at the top of his game without the help of a broad support system.

"First off, all glory to God, that's for sure," he said, kicking off a speech that went on to thank his parents, who he described as his "those who gave me the responsibility of knowing, of accepting the good with the bad."

Looking for more GRAMMYs news? The 2024 GRAMMY nominations are here!

He also extended his love and gratitude to his fiancée, Whitney Alford, and shouted out his Top Dawg Entertainment labelmates. Lamar specifically praised Top Dawg's CEO, Anthony Tiffith, for finding and developing raw talent that might not otherwise get the chance to pursue their musical dreams.

"We'd never forget that: Taking these kids out of the projects, out of Compton, and putting them right here on this stage, to be the best that they can be," Lamar — a Compton native himself — continued, leading into an impassioned conclusion spotlighting some of the cornerstone rap albums that came before To Pimp a Butterfly .

"Hip-hop. Ice Cube . This is for hip-hop," he said. "This is for Snoop Dogg , Doggystyle . This is for Illmatic , this is for Nas . We will live forever. Believe that."

To Pimp a Butterfly singles "Alright" and "These Walls" earned Lamar three more GRAMMYs that night, the former winning Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song and the latter taking Best Rap/Sung Collaboration (the song features Bilal , Anna Wise and Thundercat ). He also won Best Music Video for the remix of Taylor Swift 's "Bad Blood."

Lamar has since won Best Rap Album two more times, taking home the golden gramophone in 2018 for his blockbuster LP DAMN ., and in 2023 for his bold fifth album, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers .

Watch Lamar's full acceptance speech above, and check back at GRAMMY.com every Friday for more GRAMMY Rewind episodes.

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Photo: Meron Menghistab

Cautious Clay's 'Karpeh' Is & Isn't Jazz: "Let Me Completely Deconstruct My Conception Of The Music"

On his Blue Note Records debut 'Karpeh,' Cautious Clay treats jazz not as a genre, but as a philosophy — and uses it as a launchpad for a captivating family story.

Nobody can deny Herbie Hancock is a jazz artist, but jazz cannot box him in. Ditto Quincy Jones ; those bona fides are bone deep, but he's changed a dozen other genres.

Cautious Clay doesn't compare himself to those legends. But he readily cites them as lodestars — along with other genre-straddlers of Black American music, like Lionel Richie and Babyface .

Because this is a crucial lens through which to view him: he's jazz at his essence and not jazz at all, depending on how he wishes to express himself.

"I'm not really a jazz artist, but I feel like I have such a deep understanding of it as a songwriter and musician," the artist born Joshua Karpeh tells GRAMMY.com. "It's sort of inseparable from my approach to this album, and to this work with Blue Note."

Karpeh is talking about, well, KARPEH — his debut album for the illustrious label, which dropped in August. In three acts — "The Past Explained," "The Honeymoon of Exploration," and "A Bitter & Sweet Solitude," he casts his personal journey against the backdrop of his family saga.

As Cautious Clay explains, the title is a family name; his grandfather was of the Kru peoples in Liberia. "It's a family of immigrants. It's a family of, obviously, Black Americans," he notes. "I just wanted to give an experience that felt concrete and specific enough — to be able to live inside of something that was a part of my journey."

On KARPEH , Cautious Clay is joined by esteemed Blue Note colleagues: trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire , saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins , vibraphonist Joel Ross , guitarist Julian Lage , and others.

Vocalist Arooj Aftab and bassist Kai Eckhardt — Karpeh's uncle — also enhance the proceedings. The result is another inspired entry from Blue Note's recent resurgence — one lyrically personal and aurally inviting.

Read on for an interview with Cautious Clay about his signing to Blue Note, leveling up his recording approach, and his conception of what jazz is — and isn't.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Tell me about signing to Blue Note Records, and the overall road to KARPEH .

I kind of got connected to Don [Was , the president of Blue Note] through a relationship I had with John Mayer , who had, I guess, connected Don to my music.

Don reached out via email probably a year ago, and so we connected over email. And I had sort of been in a situation where I was like, OK, I want to do something different for this next project . We kind of met in the middle and it just made a lot of sense based on just what I wanted to do, and then what they could potentially kind of work with on my end.

So, [I was] just recording the album in six days, and doing a lot of prep work beforehand and getting all these musicians that I really liked to be able to work on it. It was just a really cool process to be able to unpack that with Blue Note.

That's great that you and Mayer go back.

Yeah, man, we have a song. We worked on each other's music a little bit together. The song "Carry Me Away" on his [2021] album [ Sob Rock ] I actually worked on, and then we did a song together called "Swim Home" that I released back in 2019.

You said you wanted to "do something different." What was the germ of that something ?

I felt like it could be interesting to do a more instrumental album, or something that felt a little bit more like a concept album, or more experimental. I wanted to be more experimental in my approach to the music that I love.

I wanted to call it a jazz album, but at the same time I didn't, because I felt like it wasn't; it was more of an experimental album.

But I felt like calling it jazz in my mind kind felt like a free way to express, because I think of jazz much more as a philosophy than necessarily a genre.

So, it was helpful for me in my mind to be able to like, OK, let me completely deconstruct my conception of the music I make and how I can translate that music.

And then it eventually evolved into a story about my family and about American history to a certain extent in the context of my family's journey, and then also just their interpersonal relationships. That sort of made itself clear as I continued to write and I continued to delve deeper into the process.

Not that KARPEH ended up being instrumental. But instrumental records are lodestars for you? I'm sure that blurs with the Blue Note canon.

There's a lot of different stuff. There was that red album that Herbie Hancock released [in 1978, titled Sunlight ] that I really liked. "I Thought It Was You" was super inspirational — sonically how they arranged a lot of that record.

Seventies jazz fusion was an overall influence. I felt inspired by the perfect meld of analog synthesizers, and then also obviously organic instruments like horns and guitars of that nature. So I wanted to create something that felt like a contemporary version of what could be a fusion record to a certain extent.

Any specific examples?

Songs like "Glass Face," for example, are pretty fusion-y, but also very just experimental in a way that doesn't feel like jazz, even.

My uncle [Kai Eckhardt] is a pretty big-time bass player, and he played on "Glass Face." I just was like, OK, dude, do your thing, and he just did this sort of chordal bass solo. Then, I did all these harmonies over top of the song.

And then, Arooj Aftab is a really good friend and musical artist; she was able to work off of that as well. So, it was an interesting journey to make a lot of these songs and sort of figure out how they all fit together.

How did you strike that balance between analog and synthesized sounds?

I recorded most of this album at a studio, which is very different for me.

I don't normally do that. I use a lot of found sounds like drums and stuff that I've either made or sampled, but I did all of the drums and bass and upright and electric guitars we'd recorded at a studio called Figure 8 in Brooklyn. That was the backbone for a lot of the music that I created for the album.

Then, I took it back home to my home studio. After we had recorded all of the songs, I essentially had some different analog synths and things that I wanted to add into it either at the studio that I worked at or my own personal studio, which happens to also be eight blocks [away] on the same street away.

I struck a balance just mostly with it in the context of working at a very formal studio and then having an engineer and just getting sounds that I wanted that could be organic and more specific in that way. And also using some of the synths they had.

In terms of the approach, I kind of wanted it to be different. And so part of that was just being at more of a formal studio and having an engineer and overseeing the overall process outside of just being inside of my Ableton session.

Tell me more about the guests on KARPEH .

I knew Immanuel through a couple of mutual friends, and he has a certain sort of bite to his sax playing that I felt was so juxtaposed to my sax playing.

And same with Ambrose. I feel like his trumpet style couldn't be more esoteric and out, in the context of how he approaches melodies. It's almost in some ways like, Whoa, I would never play that way .

They're also soloists, and conceptually for me, the idea of being in isolation or being in bittersweet solitude was conceptually a part of the last part of the album. They as soloists have so much to offer that I feel like I can't do and I don't possess.

So, I wanted to have them a part of this album, to demonstrate that individuality within the context of what it takes to make a song.

Julian is just a beautiful and spirited man, a beautiful guitar player. I've liked his sound for a while. I think it was back in 2015 when I first heard him; he had a couple of videos on YouTube that I thought were just super gorgeous.

I feel like he just has this way of playing that's folky. Also, it's jazz in the context of his virtuosic playing style, but it's also not overbearing. I felt like as a writer and as a musician, it would be a really great connecting point for a few of the more personal songs on the record.

And then my uncle Kai as well, — he's not on Blue Note, but he used to play with John McLaughlin and run bass clinics with Victor Wooten and Marcus Miller back in the early 2000s. Dude is a real heavy hitter, and he happens to be my uncle, so it's just cool to be able to have him on the record.

* Cautious Clay. Photo: Meron Menghistab *

With KARPEH out, where do you want to go from here — perhaps through a Blue Note lens?

I really love a lot of the people there, and I feel like this could be the first of many. It's also a stepping stone for me as an artist.

I feel really connected to the relationship I have, and our ability to put this out. It's hard to say what exactly the future holds, but I am genuinely excited for this album. I feel excited to be able to put out something so personal and so connected to everything that sort of made me, in a very concrete way.

From what I understand, this is a one-time thing, but it could potentially be two. It depends, obviously. I'm very open-minded about it. I'd love to keep the good relationship open and see where things go.

I really have enjoyed the process and I feel like this next year is going to be something interesting. So, we'll see.

On Her New Album, Meshell Ndegeocello Reminds Us "Every Day Is Another Chance"

Photo: Paras Griffin/Getty Images

Joy Oladokun's 'Proof Of Life' Honors Her Own Experience — And Encourages Others To Do The Same

On her new album 'Proof of Life,' the Nigerian American singer/songwriter shares how she’s learned to embrace herself, remain hopeful, and be present when collaborating with her heroes.

In the first single off her forthcoming album, Proof of Life , Joy Oladokun sings, "I hate change, but I’ve come of age/Think I’m finally finding my way." Part of her coping strategy of late — in dealing with a world on fire, waters rising, anxiety rocketing — has been to sink deeper into her feelings, to reach a point of "pure acceptance."

"Living in America, I think we can very clearly see the damage that being resistant to the way the world changes can do to us," she tells GRAMMY.com. Two days before we spoke, six people — three of them children — were killed by a 28-year-old who fired 152 rounds of ammunition at a school in Nashville, where Oladokun has lived for the past six years. "Children are getting killed because we are intentionally misreading a document from 200 years ago."

Yet Oladokun was raised in the small farming town of Casa Grande, Arizona — a place where "people shot guns for fun, and we went mudding in our trucks." She continues, "I don't think people understand that I understand the culture because of what I look like."

An unabashedly queer Black singer/songwriter, the 31-year-old uses music to plant her flag in the ground of a world that has traditionally been presumptive and unwelcoming to someone like her. Someone who grew up listening to Bob Marley and Linkin Park , and was ostracized from the church-going community she was part of when she came out; someone who "hits all the high notes but still don’t got a seat in the choir."

Over the course of three albums, Oladokun has created a safe space, for herself and others, to deal with the highs and lows that being true to yourself can bring. "Most of my songs should feel like having a conversation with me on my porch; I tell you something deep about myself and ask if you’ve ever felt that way," she says.

Like many of the artists she grew up admiring, Oladokun’s music is rooted in folk with dashes of R&B, pop and an occasional sprinkling of Afrobeats mixed in — as evident in the Proof of Life track "Revolution," which features Nigerian American rapper Maxo Kream. Whether her voice hovers along a pristine guitar or piano track, as it does on "Somehow," or reaches for the edgier side of her personality, like on the sassy "We’re All Gonna Die" (featuring Noah Kahan), she never falters to be forthright and faithful to her values.

Oladokun played music throughout high school and worked as a church music minister with the intention of becoming a pastor before she lost that job when she came out. After landing in L.A., the singer thought she’d write for others as a living. Instead, she took a chance and started writing for herself. Now, after more than six years in Nashville, Oladokun’s songs have featured in shows like "Grey’s Anatomy" and "This Is Us", and she’s collaborated with Brandi Carlile and Jason Isbell .

She spoke with GRAMMY.com about accepting herself, keeping hope alive through her guitar, and getting advice from John Mayer .

Interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You're on tour with John Mayer. What has that been like so far?

It has been absolutely amazing and challenging and scary. I really, genuinely, am a fan of John Mayer's music, and I felt this way on the My Morning Jacket tour; I felt this way touring with Maren [Morris]. When I get called to play with people that I really respect, some nerves come through. But I do feel like I've been rising to the occasion and I spent a lot of time working on my craft and guitar playing. And not every show has been perfect but I feel like they've been good, and I've been able to be myself in some of the biggest stages and rooms I've ever played.

And just the fact that it's a solo acoustic show, and that John's been so kind and accommodating. Like yesterday, he gave me advice on how to deal with when people talk s—about you on the internet.

Yeah, you’d mentioned on Twitter about having a little difficult time. Did his advice help?

It totally helped because it also is like, Oh, he feels that way, too , you know? My favorite people to work with are the people who admit that they're still human and still processing how weird this job is on us as humans.

People were making comments about my laugh, which is like, I can't change that. I'm gonna be super candid: I'm a Black queer person doing something that I think at least 10 percent of the people in that room don't think I should be doing, just by virtue of me being me.

You have such a great laugh, though!

If you're not used to it, it can be sort of jarring. [ Chuckles ]

How have you learned to become more vulnerable in your songs?

I think it's mostly about dealing with the feelings. I have this deep, honestly kind of dark, obsession with artists that have died young, and I think about it a lot because I just am someone who struggles with my mental health.

I think I am trying to carve a path for all the people like me, or the people who have gone who were like me, to be able to do this, and to stay healthy, and to stay hopeful. And to say no, if they need to or to be human, and cry in front of people. I don't think people get that I am an actual human being with feelings and thoughts, who is processing the fact that I got asked to go on tour with a hero, and that is just as confusing to me as it is to you.

I sit in my hotel room, I practice guitar and I write songs. And I do everything I can to put my heart and my soul and myself out there in hopes that people of all different walks of life can relate. And that it will cause some people to think twice when they meet people like me in their day-to-day life. That’s what's driving me, and I think that's what brought me here.

On the days that it's scary and sad and I feel isolated, or I feel like everybody hates me, or I feel like I'm embarrassing John in arenas, it is good to remember that sometimes it might just help one person to see that I am me, and that I am doing this. And it doesn't matter how well I do it. It just matters that I'm here.

Are you reaching a point where you really recognize the part that you play in the world around you and articulating that?

I think I've always been a very purpose-centric person and artist, specifically. I have this painting in my studio that says "Remember why you started." I look at it every day, and I just remember when I started, when I inched into the music industry, I was like, "I’m gonna write songs for other people." And I just wanted to write songs that help.

I was doing a job where I was listening to the radio a lot, and I didn't relate to anything. So I just wanted to write songs that people could relate to. I still have that at the core of everything I do and say; it's just desperation to hold onto my humanity, and how that translates into art.

I'm not special. Like, I get that I sing songs for a living, and that not everybody has to like those songs. But I do know that in my heart of hearts, my purpose, and my role, and my goal is to just write songs that help me deal with life, and hopefully help one or two other people. That is something that I feel like I've been accomplishing so far. And until I feel like that isn't happening anymore, I think I wouldn’t continue on this path.

Can you pinpoint when you realized the power of being able to express yourself in a song?

My dad is a huge music fan. I’ve been thinking a lot about Bob Marley's impact on what I do. I think it was growing up listening to a lot of artists who were purpose-centric, like, just so rooted in, "I have something to say," or something to share with, and explain to, the world.

Lauryn Hill opened up the possibilities of hip-hop and how it could combine with folk and soul. Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel and Paul Simon were combining folk, rock and West African music and sounds and influences. I think it was growing up listening to people that were really intentional about every aspect of what they make. I feel like I went to school [by] listening to records.

Your Twitter bio used to say you were the "trap Tracy Chapman"…

It did. I am, right? [ Chuckles ]

It fits, yes!

Tracy Chapman being herself on stage allowed me as a kid to find an art form that helped me express myself and positively deal with a lot of heavy emotions. I think I'm, like, fine at what I do. I sometimes am a little confused as to why I get the opportunities that I get, but I do know that just by being as much of myself as I can, in whatever venue that I can be, I am doing that same thing for other people. And maybe that's just the value. Maybe I don't have to be the best.

Maybe in two years people won’t remember my name. But there will be a few hundred people who were scared or shy or felt like they were too Black or too queer or too different, whatever, to do anything, and then they show up to a John Mayer show too early, and here's my goofy ass thriving. Maybe that’s just it. Maybe I don't have to win awards. Maybe it really is just honestly, lighting the torch for someone who might be better than me to be able to do the same thing for other people.

"Sweet Symphony" is a lovely duet with Chris Stapleton about your parents. Have you tried to write about them before?

I have a few songs in the past that I've written about my parents. There's one called "Let It Be Me" that I wrote about my dad doing a really beautiful 180 when it comes to my sexuality. I have like this Crosby, Stills and Nash rip off thing apologizing to them for being chaotic when I was a kid.

One of my favorite things about my parents is that they're just in love. I would say my parents are two of the most in love people I've ever seen in my life. Growing up when my dad would come home from work, he would bring flowers from the store and then he would sing my mom like some goofy Motown song or whatever for the first five minutes when he got in. I just wanted to write a song that my dad could sing to my mom. I was in my apartment when I started it. I loaded up a piano on Logic, and I just started playing cheesy Motown chords. My dad still has the demo as his ringtone for when my mom calls.

We talk about all the things that have been hard between us but I think I explored that a lot in my last album. I am the fruit of my parents' love, and to be able to celebrate it with a really cool, amazing duet with Chris Stapleton feels like a blessing.

You performed at the White House during the signing ceremony for the Respect for Marriage Act in December last year, and yet you’re still self-effacing and unassuming. Are you able to realize the significance that your work, your music, has?

I am working through imposter syndrome. I think that's the current change that I'm dealing with. That's why the internet stuff it's hard, too, because not only do I not always feel worthy, I also feel, you shouldn't be here, too.

But I am trying to remember that it's not an accident that I am who I am on this planet at this time. And that's why being so vulnerable has become so important to me. I just try to bring that into every room. I've stopped joking about being mediocre. But I've honestly stopped grading my work. I don't know if it’s good or bad. I just work and create, and perform, and hopefully the heart of it, which is the most important thing to me, is what comes across.

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Photo: Courtesy of Eric Bellinger

ReImagined: Eric Bellinger Defies "Gravity" With A Silky Rendition Of John Mayer's Hit Single

R&B singer Eric Bellinger reconstructs John Mayer's hit single "Gravity" into a soothing R&B track — and delivers a mind-bending performance that brings the song's title to life.

It's no secret that the blues have heavily influenced John Mayer 's discography. The guitarist's venture into the genre traces back to his GRAMMY-winning 2006 studio album, Continuum , especially on the track "Gravity" — and now, Eric Bellinger is giving the bluesy single an R&B twist.

In this episode of ReImagined , the singer/songwriter transforms the Continuum single into a warm, velvety R&B track. Bellinger constructs the arrangement on his own, pairing his sultry vocals with a cajón drum box, keyboard and bass guitar.

Adding an eye-catching appeal to the performance, Bellinger adds a literal interpretation of the track's lyrics — "Gravity is working against me" — as he paces around the ceiling of an upside-down house.

Outside of his original music, Bellinger has had a prolific career posting covers on YouTube, including his popular re-envisionings of Drake 's "Fake Love" and Rae Sremmurd's "Black Beatles." The R&B singer also has an impressive list of songwriting credits, including his work on Chris Brown 's F.A.M.E. , which earned Bellinger his first GRAMMY Award for Best R&B Album in 2012.

Press play on the video above to watch Eric Bellinger's rendition of "Gravity," and keep checking back to GRAMMY.com for more new episodes of ReImagined.

Watch: 6 Thrilling Moments From Rihanna's Triumphant Return With Performance At Super Bowl LVII Halftime Show

1 Dead & Company With John Mayer Announce Summer Tour Dates
2 GRAMMY Rewind: Kendrick Lamar Honors Hip-Hop's Greats While Accepting Best Rap Album GRAMMY For 'To Pimp a Butterfly' In 2016
3 Cautious Clay's 'Karpeh' Is & Isn't Jazz: "Let Me Completely Deconstruct My Conception Of The Music"
4 Joy Oladokun's 'Proof Of Life' Honors Her Own Experience — And Encourages Others To Do The Same
5 ReImagined: Eric Bellinger Defies "Gravity" With A Silky Rendition Of John Mayer's Hit Single

Bobby Christa

Dead And Company Tour 2024 Boulder

Dead And Company Tour 2024 Boulder . View this post on instagram. Dead & company capped off their tour in san francisco in july, though members of the band including john mayer have indicated the group is likely to announce plans to.

This weekend, dead & company — made up of grateful dead members bob weir and mickey hart, along with oteil burbridge, jeff chimenti. Summer 2023 tour and other dead & company.

Summer 2023 Tour And Other Dead &Amp; Company.

Under a sky lit by a buck supermoon and the shimmer of dancing drones, dead and company wrapped up their final.

Dead &Amp; Company Capped Off Their Tour In San Francisco In July, Though Members Of The Band Including John Mayer Have Indicated The Group Is Likely To Announce Plans To.

Feel like a stranger (live at folsom.

Get The Dead &Amp; Company Setlist Of The Concert At Folsom Field, Boulder, Co, Usa On July 2, 2023 From The The Final Tour:

Images references :, dead & company announced thursday that the band will do one more tour in 2023 before hanging up its jams..

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Dead & Company includes John Mayer (left), Bill Kreutzmann, Bob Weir and Mickey Hart. Photo: Lori Van Buren / Albany Times Union. Dead & Company plans to set out on a farewell tour next year, according to John Mayer. The singer and guitarist posted a tour poster on his Instagram page that read: "The Final Tour: Dead & Co. Summer 2023.".
Dead & Company, John Mayer play final show as a band in San Francisco
john mayer. san francisco. the grateful dead. 7/17/23. Deadheads from all over flocked to Oracle Park in San Francisco Sunday night to watch the last remnants of the iconic jam band the Grateful ...
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Dead & Company - The Final Tour

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