While this week saw newly-drafted Chicago Bears quarterback Justin Fields out himself as a fan of the Grateful Dead, Friday saw another shocking admission from John Oliver. The host of HBO‘s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and revealed his attachment to a piece of Dead memorabilia, much to his wife’s chagrin.
During a new segment called the “Colbert Questionert”, the venerable Stephen Colbert asked Oliver “what’s one thing you own that you should really throw out?” Oliver’s response then took a shocking detour to the last concert he attended before the pandemic, which he said was a “Grateful Dead” show in San Francisco.
While the British comedian is 44-years-old and very well could have seen Jerry Garcia prior to his death, it is likely that Oliver’s last concert didn’t take place before 1995 and that he instead saw Dead & Company. This theory would make sense as he was in San Francisco during the band’s 2019 New Year’s Eve run at the Chase Center.
Related: Lot Couture: How Grateful Dead Merch Became Mainstream Fashion
While Oliver didn’t go into detail about the concert itself, it was at the show that he acquired a Grateful Dead bomber jacket—for which he competed with fellow comedian Brooks Wheelan in a game of mini-golf—that he will never throw away.
“I will never wear this jacket, we live in an apartment in New York so we don’t have space for it, my wife has tried to throw it out three times and I will be buried in that jacket,” Oliver said.
While this may seem a tenuous grasp at fandom, it’s not Oliver’s first brush with the San Francisco psychedelic juggernauts. When he appeared on The Late Show back in 2017, the comedian walked onstage to none other than a beautiful rendition of “Fire On The Mountain” lead by Jon Batiste.
Watch John Oliver profess his Grateful Dead (jacket) allegiance below (about 4:00 minute mark), as well as his “Fire On The Mountain” entrance from 2018.
John Oliver Takes The Colbert Questionert
[Video: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert]
John Oliver Doesn’t Think He’ll Get Deported, But He’s Being Cautious
[Video: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert]