Dead & Company has finally arrived on all major streaming services. The popular Grateful Dead-inspired spinoff band comprised of original Dead members Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, and Bill Kreutzmann along with John Mayer, Oteil Burbridge, and Jeff Chimenti announced their new “Digital Concert Series” rollout on Thursday. The fan-friendly initiative will see all 19 shows from their fall 2017 and winter 2018 tours gradually uploaded to all digital and streaming services every Friday over the next few months leading into summer. The series begins today with their February 15th, 17th, and 18th performances from last year’s Playing In The Sand destination event in Riviera Maya, Mexico.
The Fall/Winter 2017 tour will be available on all digital and streaming services! All 3 shows from 2018's "Playing In The Sand" are live now, & we will release two more shows every week. They will also be offered in Apple Lossless and FLAC formats from https://t.co/Q3mSo4MRgy pic.twitter.com/Jeb6oH4xle
— Dead & Company (@deadandcompany) January 10, 2019
This is the first time that official Dead & Co recordings will be available for streaming on popular platforms like Spotify, although the band had already made some of their shows from their 2016 summer tour available for digital download on iTunes. The live audio recordings were mixed and remastered the band’s front of house sound tech, Derek Featherstone, and their recording engineer, Ross Harris. Each of the shows will also come with show notes courtesy of “Tales From The Golden Road” host Gary Lambert, which will be featured on Dead.net.
The next batch of recordings are scheduled to arrive on January 18th and will include shows from Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena on 11/24/2017 and Columbus, Ohio’s Nationwide Area from 11/25/2017. The first performance from the Playing In The Sand 2018 event can be partially streamed via the Spotify embed below.
Dead & Company – Playing In The Sand – 2/15/2018
[Audio: Dead & Company]
Dead & Company has been laying low since their headlining (and surprise sit-in) performances at LOCKN’ Festival back over the summer. However, various members of the band have played their own shows around the country in the months since. The announcement of the new streaming initiative comes just in time for fans to prepare for this year’s installment of Playing In The Sand, which begins next weekend on January 17th. Fans can click here to learn more about the digital rollout of the show recordings and reference the schedule below to see when each performance(s) will arrive in the coming months.