Following Saturday night’s fiery performance at Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium, Dead & Company stuck around in the city of angels, performing an intimate benefit in the Hollywood Hills on Sunday night—marking the band’s first private charity event since it formed in 2015. With a ticket price of $5,000 (per Billboard‘s report), the backyard benefit dubbed “Rock Under The Stars” was open to around 200 fans and raised over $1.1 million for Oceana, the world’s largest ocean conservation and advocacy organization.
While Billboard reports that the swanky event hosted 120 wealthy Deadheads from around the world, the outlet also notes that a number of high-profile Hollywood stars also made it out for the show. Actors Jeff Goldblum, Ed Begley Jr., and Dean Norris; actress Kelly Lynch; acclaimed composer Thomas Newman; movie producer Roger Birnbaum, and movie producer/writer Mitch Glazer were all in attendance. Notably, though unable to attend, Seth MacFarlane donated $250,000 to the cause in addition to a number of other Hollywood elites.
As Jeff Goldblum joked to Billboard about his non-status as a Deadhead, “I love that song, ‘Satin Doll’. … Maybe I’m mixing them up with someone else. They do a lot of mellow Brazilian tunes, don’t they?… I know I have to take LSD at some point.”
Mickey Hart also spoke to a representative from Billboard after the show, discussing the juxtaposition of playing a crowd of 30,000 on Saturday and moving to an exclusive backyard party with less than 300 in attendance the next day, “Going from a stadium to a house party is a very interesting dynamic, but the point is a musician is privileged to be a musician and musicians should give back that privilege.”
On the importance of the event, Hart added, “In general, you gotta defend the treasures. One of them is the oceans and you have to defend it however you can. You have to fight the evil that’s in the White House now with everything you have. So any night I can raise a million dollars is a good night.”
By all accounts, it seems like all the members of Dead & Company was very on board to sign onto the cause. As Bernie Cahill, one of Dead & Company’s co-managers with Irving Azoff and Steve Moir, explained, “[Dead & Company] get[s] asked to do a million of these things.” He continued, “They’ve very focused on the health of our oceans. … Bill [Kreutzmann] lives in Hawaii, Bob [Weir] lives on the water. Oceana really resonated with them.”
Furthermore, Keith Addis, co-founder of a leading management and production company and president of Oceana, noted that Dead & Company easily signed on for the benefit, which he hosted at his home. He explained that the band agreed to perform after one call to Cahill. In contrast, Addis noted that normally booking a band for the intimate gathering takes three months, with past performers including Sting and Don Henley.
As for the show itself, Dead & Company offered up by all accounts a stellar show. The group weaved through “Dark Star”, opening the show with the tune then later jamming on the melody between takes on “Samson & Delilah” and “Brown-Eyed Women”. Notably, the band’s performance of “Samson & Delilah” was somewhat of a “tour debut” for the group, marking the first time the song has been played this tour—the fan-favorite track is generally reserved for Sundays and the band hasn’t played any Sundays this tour thus far.
You can check out the setlist and some videos from last night’s show below.
Setlist: Dead & Company | Oceana’s 3rd-Annual Rock Under The Stars | Los Angeles, CA | 7/8/2018
Set: Dark Star v. 1, Samson & Delilah, Dark Star jam, Brown-Eyed Women, When I Paint My Masterpiece, Franklin’s Tower, Dark Star v. 2, Shakedown Street, Touch of Grey
[H/T Billboard]