Dead & Company At Shoreline Amphitheater: July 3, 2018

Dead & Company At Shoreline Amphitheater 2018

Three years ago, the world celebrated the 50th anniversary of The Grateful Dead with a Fare Thee Well Tour that included two concerts in Santa Clara, California and three concerts in Chicago, Illinois over the span of one week. Fare The Well marked the retirement of the Grateful Dead name and the last time Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, and Bill Kreutzmann would ever play together.

While Brian has been a Grateful Dead fan his entire life, I only knew a bit of the music and the band. Honestly, those five shows and that experience that surrounded them were life-changing. I wanted that feeling I had to continue forever and luckily, the music wasn’t going to stop. Later that year, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann joined with Grammy Award winners John Mayer and Oteil Burbridge, and RatDog keyboardist Jeff Chimenti and announced their new band: Dead & Company.

By the end of this summer, we will have seen Dead & Company play 20 times and the kids will have seen them 13 times. And, what we love is that unlike other bands that play the same setlists over and over, no two Dead & Company shows are the same. In fact, to date the band has pulled almost 150 songs from The Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Band catalog.

Dead & Company At Shoreline Night Two

Dead & Company delivered an unforgettable night one performance at Shoreline Amphitheater for a hometown crowd that was on its feet for the entire show. It was hard to believe that the second night could top the show, but dang, the second concert was even better. Throughout the night, the entire band was clearly having fun, which made watching them play even more fun.

Dead & Company took the stage for what was the best show of the tour to date (for us) and kicked things off with a relaxed Iko Iko by Weir, a rollicking Alabama Getaway by Mayer, and strong New Minglewood Blues Weir. Up next Mayer led one of my favorites of all time, Brown Eyed Women and Weir and Mayer continued to trade off songs through the end of the set with Cassidy, Ship of Fools, and Let It Grow. And, of course, Burbridge joined Mayer for Ship Of Fools, which caused the crowd to erupt in cheers once again, clearly signaling that we all want more from Oteil!

While the first set saw one individual song after another without any musical transitions, Dead & Company came back from set break amped up and played almost nonstop until the end of the show.

The band kicked off the second set with a killer China Cat Sunflower that led into Althea (which I love) and Viola Lee Blues that led into I Know You Rider — and at that point, the entire amphitheater was going nuts.

Drums and Space then moved right into the second verse of The Other One, finishing up the song that began the night before. The ballad slot then saw Weir deliver The Days Between and the set finally wrapped up with a fantastic Casey Jones.

Throughout the entire set, smiles radiated across the faces of everyone around us and whole crowd was on its feet dancing. When the band came back for an encore of Ripple, we all sang along and marveled in how lucky we were to be present for this show. Even Carter stood up for encore with us which I loved — even if he only did it to avoid being stepped on in the dark!

Next up: A quick pit stop at home to do laundry and restock the ice chest. Then we’re off to Colorado for the final two shows of Dead & Company’s 2018 summer tour at Folsom Field in Boulder by way of Dinosaur National Monument and Rocky Mountain National Park.