In the neon heart of Las Vegas, Saturday night’s installment of Dead & Company’s Dead Forever Sphere residency didn’t aim to be the wildest ride of the weekend, but it may have been the most emotionally resonant.
Coming off two nights of bombastic visuals, glitchy hijinks, Hendrixian solos, and rainbow-vortex bliss, March 29th saw the sextet of Bob Weir, John Mayer, Mickey Hart, Jeff Chimenti, Oteil Burbridge, and Jay Lane dig a little deeper, settle a little more comfortably into the groove, and, at times, get downright tender.
That’s not to say the show lacked the usual kaleidoscopic spectacle. MSG’s Sphere still flexed its all-encompassing digital sorcery like a psychedelic Holodeck, projecting the band into star-strewn skies, underwater worlds, Martian discos, and neon-tinted Vegas wonderlands.
But this night belonged, in many ways, to the players themselves—especially Bob and Jeff, each of whom took center stage with vulnerability and flair.
The night kicked off on a sly groove with “Man Smart, Woman Smarter”, that old calypso chestnut made famous by King Radio and revived by the Dead for decades. The Sphere showed the band hundreds of feet tall inside a sprawling hangar, while Jeff Chimenti got busy on the keys, hammering out riffs that turned the rhythm into a spiritual cousin of the previous night’s closer, “Not Fade Away”. And wouldn’t you know it: the crowd kept that iconic Deadhead clap pattern going.
Next came “Eyes of the World”, with Bob leading the way vocally, his phrasing relaxed, slightly weathered, but charmingly heartfelt. Visuals showed the band lifting off from Haight-Ashbury into a starry sky, their instruments sparkling with cosmic energy. Chimenti stole the song, again, layering in some Latin-jazz piano fire that spiraled into a swirling tunnel of bears, tie-dye, and bliss.
“Deal” followed, and Mayer took over vocals while a wireframe dancing bear tumbled gleefully through a retro platformer-style landscape. Think early ’90s arcade, but trippier. Jeff went hard again on keys, with a solo so fat and funky that the spinners couldn’t help but get down.
Then came a group hug moment: “The Weight”. One by one, Bob, John, Oteil, and Jeff each took a verse, and by the end, Bob was reaching for the heavens with a falsetto vocal line that felt like a full-circle nod to The Band’s original. It was tender, raw, and emotional in a heartwarming way.
To close the set, “Terrapin Station” delivered the grandeur. Visually, we entered a crystal kaleidoscope tunnel, emerged at a sunrise over snow-capped mountains, then got pulled into a vortex of Dead iconography. Bears, terrapins, peace signs, flying eyeballs—the whole freaky family. John took the first verse, Bob the last, and John and Jeff linked up for a jam that climbed and climbed before dissolving into light.
But it was “Bertha” that got the biggest reaction of the set. In tribute to the tapers, the Sphere soared over orange-and-blue cassette tapes en route to a room of Dead ephemera—tickets, passes, backstage badges. All the while, John let it rip on guitar.
And Bob? He got choked up, visibly emotional as the crowd roared through the final chorus. It was a moment that didn’t need Sphere magic. It had all the soul it needed.
“Hell in a Bucket” opened the second set with a wink and a grimace. Bob’s gravelly delivery was backlit by a stop-motion circus tower showing the stages of life and death, skeletons in drag, terrapins jamming by a campfire. The usual Saturday night irreverence, seasoned with some existential spice.
The blending of “China Cat Sunflower” into “I Know You Rider” brought back that familiar rolling energy. Jeff banged around on the keys with joyful abandon while the Sphere conjured rainbow tunnels, river landscapes, and a full-on undead motorcycle gang. Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty rode through a Dead-ified Vegas Strip before teaming up with a rose-crowned skeleton who tore the ceiling off the place. Good, clean fun—by Vegas’ standards, anyway.
From there, “Help on the Way > Slipknot!” delivered some of the night’s deepest instrumental work. “Help” was slick, with Oteil’s bass cutting through like a butter knife, while “Slipknot!” transported us inside The Mars Hotel, where Martians in weird costumes reacted to whatever was playing on their TV (we never got to see it; classic tease). The jam? Thick, exploratory, a true head-scratcher in the best way.
“Row Jimmy” slowed things down for a deep dive in search of a Ship of Fools (literally, that’s what they found at the bottom of the ocean), while “Drums > Space” kept up their reign as the best showcase of Sphere’s multisensory capabilities. Mickey burst through a stained-glass fractal and painted the cosmos with color, adding new visual layers and sending bass rumbles through the in-seat haptics like a spiritual ceremony in a spaceship.
Then came a surprise: “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”, the Bob Dylan classic, with hints of “My Favorite Things” baked into the jam. Bob sang it like a man who’d seen storms and lived to tell the tale. Jeff, again, laid it down thick on the keys. Mayer emerged from the post-Drums fog sleeveless and ready to shred.
And shred he did on “Shakedown Street”, which launched the packed house back into dance mode. A disco ball engraved with a thunderbolt-adorned “Stealie” skull reflected the band back onto the dome, after Martians reappeared to boogie down. It was fun and deeply funky, with John and Jeff trading solos like two kids playing with their favorite toys.
Then came a cool-down with “Brokedown Palace” amid a soft descent back to 1965 Haight-Ashbury. John took the lead, and it was pure comfort.
An old Grateful Dead news broadcast played to bridge time and space, before an encore of “One More Saturday Night”. Bob let it rip one last time while Sphere unspooled a montage of photos spanning the band’s wild, weird, and wonderful 60-year trip. Fittingly, Jeff Chimenti was still spectacular on keys, proving once again that he’s as much in the running for MVP of this whole intergalactic experiment as anyone else in Dead & Company.
This particular Saturday night at Sphere didn’t try to top the Thursday or Friday shows with more lasers or deeper jams. It leaned into something a little more grounded, a little more human. It let Bob wear his heart on his sleeve, gave Jeff room to shine in the spotlight, and balanced the big visual bang with some true emotional resonance.
Once again, Dead & Company added to their chapter of the Grateful Dead’s sprawling story with care, creativity, and a whole lot of heart. And in a venue built for spectacle, sometimes the most magical moments come from a voice cracking, a piano crying, or an old song played just right.
One more Saturday night, indeed—and if Dead & Company keep this up, surely Deadheads will take a few more.
Click below to check out fan-shot videos, and scroll down to view the full setlists. Find tickets for upcoming Dead & Company shows here.
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Dead & Company – “Man Smart, Woman Smarter” – 3/29/25
[Vide: Tom F]
Setlist: Dead & Company | Sphere | Las Vegas | 3/29/25
Set 1: Man Smart, Woman Smarter (King Radio), Eyes of the World, Deal (Jerry Garcia), The Weight (The Band) > Terrapin Station, Bertha
Set 2: Hell in a Bucket, China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider (traditional), Help on the Way > Slipknot! > Row Jimmy > Drums > Space > A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall (Bob Dylan) (with elements of “My Favorite Things”), Shakedown Street, Brokedown Palace, One More Saturday Night (Bob Weir)