By now, it’s safe to say that Dead & Company have officially repurposed the old adage about the Grateful Dead. At Sphere, “Never miss a Sunday show” has morphed into “Never miss a Thursday show.”
Dead & Company’s fourth performance of their latest 18-show Dead Forever Sphere residency at the cosmic playground known as Sphere was a testament to that evolution. As with all of the band’s shows at the Madison Square Garden property to date, it was a galactic trip that wrapped six decades of Grateful Dead history in bleeding-edge visuals and jams as loose and lived-in as your favorite patchwork pants.
The crowd was buzzing with the type of vibe that only this class of tie-dye-clad, sandal-shuffling pilgrims can conjure. Inside, Sphere—a sensory spaceship in its own right—waited like a portal to another dimension. When the band hit the stage, you could practically feel the ripple through the collective hippocampus of every Deadhead present.
We were goin’ down the road feelin’ weird, and we hadn’t even left the hangar yet.
“Alabama Getaway” roared to life with its signature stomp as the band played beneath a cinematic rendering of a rocket hangar. John Mayer immediately signaled he was in it for the long haul, steering the song into a deep jam that dissolved all sense of linear time.
We were off.
Next up, “Truckin’” brought the narrative (and the visuals) back home, at least for a moment. The band blasted off from present-day Haight-Ashbury, flying down a “rainbow road” and around Saturn’s rings while astronauts drifted by. During the ascent from San Francisco, a cheeky blimp floated across the screen, reading “60 Years,” nodding to the Grateful Dead’s unfathomable run as the planet’s longest, strangest trip.
“The Music Never Stopped” was classic Dead funk with a side of Bob Weir wisdom. The 77-year-old’s vocals lent a sage-like weight as a swirling vortex sucked us into the Egyptian desert—complete with pyramids, a sphynx, a swarm of bats, and a lunar eclipse. A callback to the Dead’s 1978 Rocking the Cradle shows in Giza, it was one of many winks to the ‘heads who’ve been here since the Keith and Donna Jean Godchaux days.
The tone shifted with “Cumberland Blues”, which got a carnival treatment complete with flying eyeballs, Uncle Sam skeletons, and dancing bears galore. The band slipped in elements of Stevie Wonder’s “I Wish” like a secret sauce, with Jeff Chimenti’s keys and Oteil Burbridge’s bass driving the funky undercurrent.
“Loose Lucy” combined snowy mountains with twirling dancers before giving way to a flight through a swarm of animated versions of Europe ’72 album covers. Bob’s playful delivery was spot-on, like a mischievous uncle at the campfire, reminding everyone that the Dead have always been part musical sermon, part stoned vaudeville.
“Sugaree” capped the set, with Mayer stretching the solo like taffy over a visual tableau of vintage Dead posters and kaleidoscopic paint plumes. It was fluid, emotional, and downright nasty—in the best way.
Dead & Company — “Cumberland Blues” — 3/27/25
[Video: The Zalewski Law Firm]
Mayer emerged for set two in full Sleeveless Summer mode: suns out, guns out, jams in. The 47-year-old virtuoso launched into “Mr. Charlie”, while a readout of live sound levels bounced across the dome like a spaceship dashboard gone haywire.
“Scarlet Begonias” dropped a literal garden of, well, scarlet begonias over the crowd. That illumination eventually morphed into a technicolor spiral of skulls, peace signs, and airborne eyeballs. Mayer and Chimenti locked into a samba-tinged groove that had the floor swaying like a raft on electric Kool-Aid.
A seamless transition into “Franklin’s Tower” revealed a vortex of prisms, a Deadhead disco ball, and a wall of dancing bear blotter tabs. New for 2025: the band’s live projections were literally composed of those tabs. It was peak weird, and peak awesome. Jeff’s keys had bounce, boogie, and bite, and the whole spectacle shimmered.
Then came the high church of the evening: “St. Stephen” into “The Eleven”. Bob’s gritty vocals carried us through a swirling tunnel of skulls before the dome morphed into a lava lamp from another dimension. Oteil stepped up on bass during the jam, locking in with Chimenti for one of the deepest musical explorations of the night.
When they shifted into “The Eleven”—a Sphere residency debut, not seen since July 8th, 2023 at The Gorge Amphitheatre—the visuals followed suit: undead Uncle Sam on a motorcycle with skeletal Lady Liberty, joyriding a Dead-ified Vegas Strip straight into the Sphere itself. Then came the Drums/Space interlude. It was (as always) the Sphere’s crown jewel.
Mickey Hart burst through a psychedelic stained glass window like a rhythm-mad prophet, joining forces with Jay Lane and Oteil in a cage of light and percussion. Skeletons banged on mushrooms. Deadheads surfed waves of kaleidoscopic color. Mickey licked the strings of his Beam, manipulating shapes, colors, and particles in real time like some sort of rhythm-wizard VJ. The haptic seats pulsed like a heartbeat. This was the stuff people will talk about for decades.
And it happens three times a week.
Out of that black hole emerged “Days Between”, with Bob delivering one of the most emotionally resonant performances of the evening. No crazy visuals needed. Just a blue backdrop, the quiet reverence of the crowd, and a moving tribute to the late Jerry Garcia. Goosebumps.
Then came a gear shift: “All Along the Watchtower” with Mayer channeling his inner Jimi Hendrix through a swirling room of neon concert posters and interstellar floating screens.
The surprise of the night came with the live Dead & Company debut of “Broken Arrow”, a haunting Robbie Robertson ballad adopted by Phil Lesh in the mid-’90s, which felt like a gentle descent from space back into the beating heart of ’65 Haight-Ashbury. Mayer kept the shred dialed in, but the vibe was full-circle serenity.
After a touching Dead Forever video featuring archival audio of Phil Lesh describing the Grateful Dead, the band closed out with “Sugar Magnolia”. Bob was back in the spotlight, belting the tune with weathered joy. The visuals traced the band’s journey through the decades—a photo montage of wild nights, wild hair, and the enduring spirit of this eternal circus.
Dead & Company — “Broken Arrow” (Robbie Robertson), “Sugar Magnolia” — 3/27/25
[Video: 84Westy]
At this point, calling the Sphere shows “concerts” feels a little disingenuous.
These are immersive, hallucinogenic operas where the music of the Dead—soaked in 60 years of counterculture DNA—collides with the most advanced visual storytelling on Earth. Thursday night proved again that this residency is a rite of passage for Deadheads and live music lovers alike.
Dead & Company’s Dead Forever run at the Sphere continues with shows this weekend (March 28–29) and across several more weekends through May 18th. Find tickets and a full list of dates here.
Do yourself a favor: never miss a Thursday show. Because on nights like this, the music never stops, and neither does the magic.
Setlist: Dead & Company | Sphere | Las Vegas, NV | 3/27/25
Set One: Alabama Getaway, Truckin’, The Music Never Stopped, Cumberland Blues, Loose Lucy, Sugaree
Set Two: Mr. Charlie, Scarlet Begonias > Franlin’s Tower, St. Stephen > William Tell Bridge > The Eleven [1] > Drums > Space > Days Between, All Along The Watchtower (Bob Dylan), Broken Arrow (Robbie Robertson) [2], Sugar Magnolia
[1] Sphere debut, LTP 7/8/23
[2] FTP