Dead & Company returned on Tuesday for the band’s second of two nights at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, CA. The Bay Area concert, taking place not far from where Bob WeirBill Kreutzmann, and Mickey Hart built the Grateful Dead legacy with Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, and Ronald “Pigpen” McKernan, arrived as the third of Dead & Co.’s summer tour, and the first with no song debuts. Instead, the band mostly focused on the most celebrated selections from the Grateful Dead’s heydey, even throwing it back to the group’s very first concert.

Weir, Kreutzmann, and Hart took the stage alongside guitarist John Mayer, bassist Oteil Burbridge, and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti in the lingering California sunlight, building an ambient opening jam into “Cassidy”. Through his sublime leads and fragile falsetto, Mayer helped ease crowds in with his gentile performance on Bob’s Ace track.

Dead & Company – “Cassidy” [Pro-Shot] – 6/14/22

Bill and Mickey fanned the flames that inevitably arose from Mayer’s PRS, adding coal to the engine from their drumkits. As Chimenti’s grand piano swirled its way through the layered instrumentation, Weir brought it all back around with the song’s ending touchdown. With the sun beginning to dip over the amphitheater and any lingering dust shaken from the stage, the band went into “Bird Song”, which has become a go-to first set jam vehicle.

After that followed a drop into a quick, Mayer-led “Dire Wolf”. The uptempo Workingman’s Dead singalong spurred the cohesive amoeba that is a Dead & Company audience back into motion before a cover of Bob Dylan‘s “When I Paint My Masterpiece” marked the midway point of the set.

Dead & Company – “Dire Wolf” – 6/14/22

[Video: billzlose]

“Tennessee Jed” came next as the sun faded from view and Mayer led a tongue-in-cheek “Here Comes Sunshine”. The bouncy central riff is the next best thing to an injection of pure serotonin, and it set the stage for a rocking “U.S. Blues” to close out set one. Weir appropriately used the American anthem to call attention to the band’s ongoing efforts with voter registration nonprofit HeadCount, grabbing the signed D’Angelico up for auction on Participation Row for the rendition. The bidding on the custom instrument quickly shot up to $54,000 following the performance. Stop by HeadCount and REVERB‘s Participation Row at any show on the tour to see the guitar or place a bid. For inquiries about remote bidding, email info@headcount.org.

 

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To open set two, Dead & Company threw it all the way back with “Cold Rain and Snow”, the traditional American folk song that opened the Grateful Dead’s (then known as The Warlocks) first-ever concert at Magoo’s Pizza Parlor in Menlo Park, CA on May 5th, 1965. Though the players have changed, the song remains the same as Mayer and Chimenti enjoyed a lively exchange of ideas on this short-but-sweet bluesy jam.

Dead & Company – “Cold Rain & Snow” (Traditional), “Estimated Prophet” [Pro-Shot] – 6/14/22

The landing gear then came down and the seatbelt sign illuminated as set two mode was fully engaged with “Estimated Prophet”. This reggae-infused Bob Weir/John Perry Barlow composition lost a few bpms in the Dead & Company transfer, which may have relented a little of its island feel, but the crawl gives it a newly eerie veneer for Oteil to walk his bassline all over.

This ode to the Golden Shore upon which Dead & Company played ignited a transitional journey that would last through the majority of the set, and led immediately into “Eyes of the World”. The quintessential second set jam vehicle continued the journey as Dead & Company pulled into Terrapin Station for runs through “Lady With A Fan” and the main event before arriving at Drums and Space.

Just as he did on Dead & Company’s 2021 summer tour with Dr. Steven Feld‘s Voices of the Rainforest album, Mickey Hart is utilizing sequences—or “Zones”—from the upcoming Planet Drum album In The Groove during Drums segments on this tour. Oteil and the rest of the band soon joined in the groove to transition into “The Wheel” out of Space followed by a gentle “Standing On The Moon”. This latter-era Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter ballad then led to the first stoppage in play before Buddy Holly & The Crickets‘ “Not Fade Away” closed out the second set, with the hometown crowd keeping the beat as the band left the stage for encore break.

Dead & Company – “Standing On The Moon” – 6/14/22

[Video: billzlose]

Taking the Shoreline Amphitheatre stage one more time, Dead & Company opted to leave on a whisper rather than a roar with “Brokedown Palace”.

Scroll down to check out a gallery of photos from Dead & Company at Shoreline night two courtesy of photographer Matthew Rea. The band’s tour travels next to Boulder, CO for two nights at Folsom Field on June 17th and 18th.

Setlist: Dead & Company | Shoreline Amphitheatre | Mountain View, CA | 6/14/22

Set One: Cassidy, Bird Song, Dire Wolf, When I Paint My Masterpiece, Tennessee Jed, Here Comes Sunshine, U.S. Blues

Set Two: Cold Rain and Snow, Estimated Prophet > Eyes of the World > Lady With A Fan > Terrapin Station > Drums > Space > The Wheel > Standing On The Moon, Not Fade Away

Encore: Brokedown Palace