This weekend, Eric Clapton‘s Crossroads Guitar Festival at Los Angeles, CA’s Crypto.com Arena hosted a truly baffling list of performers and surprise guests. Among the many notable performances to take place over the course of the two-day event was a rare meeting of the John Mayer Trio, the long-dormant blues-rock power trio featuring its namesake singer/guitarist alongside bassist Pino Palladino and drummer Steve Jordan, which blazed through a Bill Murray-introduced four-song set including three longtime setlist staples and one JMT debut: Jerry Garcia– and Robert Hunter-penned Grateful Dead favorite “They Love Each Other”.
Aside from a three-song set at this year’s Love Rocks NYC benefit concert at the Beacon Theatre, a brief spot at the A Great Night In Harlem Jazz Foundation benefit in 2016, and a similarly truncated slot at the 2010 edition of Crossroads Guitar Festival, the John Mayer Trio has mostly been collecting dust in fans’ memories since its last tour back in 2009.
Among the many twists and turns Mayer’s career has undergone since then is his love affair with the music of the Grateful Dead, which developed from a Pandora discovery into an eight-year tenure touring stadiums with Dead & Company. Now that this past summer’s Dead & Company “Final Tour” is in the rearview, many fans have speculated about how, and to what extent, Mayer might continue to incorporate the Grateful Dead songbook into his future solo endeavors. On Saturday at Crossroads Guitar Festival, after opening with “Vultures”, “Gravity”, and Jimi Hendrix‘s “Wait Until Tomorrow”—all of which appear on the trio’s acclaimed 2005 live album, Try!—John Mayer began answering that question with a new addition to the outfit’s live repertoire.
Related: What Does The End Of Dead & Company’s Final Tour Really Mean?
“I thought this would be a collision of worlds in the most perfect way if we played a Grateful Dead song for you,” Mayer explained to the crowd, “and I was thinking of what would be the song in the catalog that lent itself the most to these incredible musicians, Steve Jordan and Pino Palladino, and this one came to mind, and we played it and went, ‘Okay!'”
With that, Mayer slid into the opening notes of “They Love Each Other”, debuted live by the Dead in 1973 and later featured on Garcia’s Reflections solo album in 1976. The stripped-back instrumentation and tasteful vocal harmonies from Jordan laid bare the innocent yet profound power of the song’s lyrics. Riding a lively bounce and some unique rock grit from this world-class rhythm section, the take barreled into a searing blues guitar solo before making a high-speed landing to close out the set. Okay, indeed!
On the second night of the event, Mayer also logged time onstage with Sheryl Crow (on “My Favorite Mistake“) and H.E.R. (on “Hold On“).
Watch the full John Mayer Trio performance from Crossroads Guitar Festival 2023 below. “They Love Each Other” begins at 19:50. Click below the video to check out the full list of performers featured at the two-day event.
John Mayer Trio – “Vultures”, “Gravity”, “Wait Until Tomorrow” (Jimi Hendrix), “They Love Each Other” (Grateful Dead, JMT debut) – 9/23/23
[Video: Michael Varney – Music]