As Deadheads from all over prepare to converge on San Francisco, CA for Dead & Company‘s celebration of 60 years of the Grateful Dead‘s music alongside a trio of outsized opening acts—Billy Strings (Friday, 8/1), Sturgill Simpson (Saturday, 8/2), and Trey Anastasio Band (Sunday, 8/3)—one question has been popping up consistently: to paraphrase, “Are those openers just openers or are they playing in the band, too?”
Before we attempt to answer that question, we should preface our response: We have zero inside knowledge about the Dead & Company run at Golden Gate Park. Anything we know (or mention here) is public knowledge. In the end, your guess is as good as ours—but if you ask the right questions, the answers aren’t exactly hidden.
Let’s start with, “Why are there openers to begin with?” That’s not a bad question. Dead & Company—comprised of Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, John Mayer, Oteil Burbridge, Jeff Chimenti, and Jay Lane—have never toured with an opener in the past. Guest sit-ins aren’t exactly common for Dead & Company, either. We got Dave Matthews in Colorado in 2023, Maggie Rogers in NYC in 2019, Bon Iver in Wisconsin in 2018, assorted percussionists through the years, but such guest spots have been few and far between.
If nothing else, the addition of the three heavy-hitting opening acts to the weekend’s bill has served to differentiate these three shows from your “regular” Dead & Co weekend run—and that’s allowing a wide berth for “regular,” since this is a band that has played nearly 50 shows since the end of its Final Tour in 2023 without ever really breaking that promise (i.e. a residency isn’t a tour, even if it lasts for two years). In fact, if you want to be a stickler for semantics, Golden Gate Park will be the second public, ticketed venue (after Sphere) that Dead & Company have played since the final night of The Final Tour at San Francisco’s Oracle Park two summers ago—and when you start talking about multiple venues in multiple cities, you understandably run the risk of someone throwing the “t” word around. Can’t have that…
No, this isn’t just a run of Dead & Company tour dates shows; its a celebration of “60 years of the Grateful Dead’s music,” and plenty of folks beyond the ones in Dead & Company have played that music over the years.
That brings up another good question: “Why do you think these three specific acts were booked to open these concerts celebrating 60 years of Grateful Dead music?”
When’s the last time you saw Billy Strings, Sturgill Simpson, or Trey Anastasio (Phish) booked as the opener for anybody else’s show? All three regularly headline festivals, amphitheaters, and other large venues on their own.
Related: How Jerry Garcia Helped Inspire Sturgill Simpson To Return To The Stage
The reason could surely come down to reverence: Billy, Sturgill, and Trey have all been effusive in their praise of the Grateful Dead in the past. It could also come down to a certain spirit of individualism: Billy, Sturgill, and Trey have all notably pulled back from associations with the Dead in service of their own musical identities—whether that’s Billy separating himself from the “teet” and leaning into classic bluegrass, Sturgill setting jam band fans straight at his country-rock concerts, or Trey and Phish actively avoiding media efforts to label them a “new-generation Dead” throughout the ’90s.
Our modern jam band scene is an eclectic space big enough to include the Grateful Dead’s lysergic Americana, Phish’s singular rock-prog-funk cocktail, Sturgill Simpson’s artistically ambitious outlaw country, Billy Strings’ old-meets-new approach to bluegrass, and more without being defined by any one in particular. What better way to honor the forefathers of that scene than by luring three prodigal singer-guitarists to the Motherland to join in the celebration?
But really, if you want to get to the heart of town the matter, Billy Strings, Sturgill Simpson, and Trey Anastasio have all shared the experience of filling the “Jerry” role in some post-’95 Dead spinoff or other. Billy Strings, in addition to his multiple collaborations with Bob Weir, played guitar for Bill Kreutzmann in Billy & The Kids for a handful of memorable shows a few years back. Sturgill Simpson has traveled to Mexico each of the past two winters to perform the music of the Grateful Dead with Weir at Dead Ahead. Trey Anastasio was the last lead guitarist to play with the “core four” of Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh, and Mickey Hart during the five-show Fare Thee Well stadium run ten years ago.
In other words, Dead & Company uncharacteristically booked three unique, contemporary stars with notable experience playing Grateful Dead music as the opening acts for their three-day celebration of 60 years of Grateful Dead music.
So, will Billy Strings, Sturgill Simpson, and Trey Anastasio sit in with Dead & Company at Golden Gate Park? They’re not going to say so, but I mean… probably, yeah. We can’t think of a single good reason why they wouldn’t. Buy the ticket, take the ride. We’ll see you in San Francisco.
Find single-day or three-day tickets to Dead & Company at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park on August 1st (with Billy Strings), August 2nd (with Sturgill Simpson), and August 3rd (with Trey Anastasio Band) here. Order your pay-per-view livestreams of all three shows in HD or 4K via nugs here.
Below, get excited for whatever sit-ins with Dead & Company may theoretically take place at Golden Gate Park with videos of Trey Anastasio, Billy Strings, and Sturgill Simpson doing the Garcia thing with various other outfits.
Trey Anastasio (Fare Thee Well) – “Scarlet Begonias” (Grateful Dead) – 7/3/15
[Video: LazyLightning55a]
Billy Strings (Billy & The Kids) – “U.S. Blues” (Grateful Dead) – 7/12/21
Sturgill Simpson (Dead Ahead) – “Brown-Eyed Women” (Grateful Dead) – 1/13/25