Dead & Company’s “Dead Forever” delights fans at the Sphere concert in Las Vegas

The state-of-the-art Sphere concert venue in Las Vegas hosts Dead & Company through July 13th.

The show would have blown Owsley “Bear” Stanley away.

Yes, even the famed LSD guru — who was also the Grateful Dead’s sound engineer and architect of the band’s fabled “Wall of Sound” — could never have imagined the full-force psychedelic rock experience that awaited fans on opening night of Dead & Company’s “Dead Forever” run at the Sphere in Las Vegas on Thursday.

As the band continued to play, fans were transported – via the incredible high-definition video images that fill the 366-foot-tall dome-shaped venue – from the San Francisco starting point straight into space (which we know some will dispute). is actually almost the same). From there, fans relaxed in a beautiful tropical garden, watched an old-school Western movie, attended a concert in the desert, and somehow found themselves part of a giant paint-by-numbers picture.

They watched as giant terrapins played instruments, paraded around with a skeleton in patriotic garb, and dancing bears made the same moves.

Oh yeah, and the music was pretty good too, like this phenomenally popular Grateful Dead offshoot – consisting of Dead alum Bob Weir on vocals and guitar and Mickey Hart on drums, as well as singer-guitarist John Mayer, bassist Oteil Burbridge and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti and drummer Jay Lane played through 19 songs in two very generous sets.

They took the stage promptly at 7:35 a.m. – just five minutes after the printed start time – and were still in top form almost four hours later.

It was a great way to celebrate the return to the stage for Dead & Company, the Bay Area-rooted jam band that wrapped up its blockbuster 2023 farewell tour with three sold-out shows at San Francisco’s Oracle Park in July.

It was also the first of 24 nights the band will perform at the Sphere, which has quickly become arguably Las Vegas’ landmark as the dome pulses with amazing video images that can be seen for miles. Fittingly, it featured the Dead’s signature “Steal Your Face” skull logo and other graphics as fans entered the building on Thursday.

“Dead Forever” is the second residency to take place at the $2 billion venue, which opened in September with an epic performance by U2. Overall, Dead & Company is the third act to give public concerts there – after the jam band Phish played four shows on the Sphere stage in April.

So what are Dead & Co. doing so soon after selling hundreds of thousands of tickets for their farewell tour?

Technically, the Sphere residency is not a real tour. So the band is grooving right through that loophole and straight to the bank while playing shows through July 13, mostly on weekends (deadandcompany.com).

The 18,000 or so fans in attendance certainly weren’t worried about semantics or technical details, as they enjoyed hearing such long-time favorites as “Jack Straw,” “Bird Song” and “Brown-Eyed Women” during a relatively short event – musically speaking – first movement.

After a half-hour set break, the group heated up the second set with a powerful jam from long-time music partners “Help on the Way,” “Slipknot!” and “Franklin’s Tower,” the latter of which is arguably the musical highlight of the entire show.

The graphics were nothing short of exhilarating and often disorienting – as the eyes tried to make sense of the near-constant sensory overload.

There were a few moments where I felt a little dizzy and even felt a touch of motion sickness as I tried in vain to take in everything that was happening on the giant video screens as the band played “He’s Gone.” Standing on the Moon” and “St. Stephen.”

The downside of all these special effects – and, well, just lighting – vying for attention is that you literally lose sight of the actual musicians. They visually become afterthoughts of everything that is going on.

Still, there were moments when everything fell into place so beautifully, like when the group returned to space for a poignant version of Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and then ended the show with a triumphant performance through Buddy Holly’s “Not “Fade concluded.

The Sphere truly offers a concert experience like no other. And there are very few, if any, bands that seem to fit what this venue has to offer better than Dead & Co.

Set list:
1. “Feel like a stranger”
2. “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo”
3. “Jack Straw”
4. “Birdsong”
5. “Me and my uncle”
6. “Brown-Eyed Women”
7. “Cold Rain and Snow”
Sentence 2:
8. “Uncle John’s Band”
9. “Help on the way”
10. “Slipknot!”
11. “Franklin’s Tower”
12. “He’s gone”
13. “Drums”
14. “Space”
15. “Standing on the Moon”
16. “St. Stephen”
17. “Hell in a Bucket”
18. “Klokin’ on Heaven’s Door”
19. “Don’t Fade”