Questlove, the beloved drummer for The Roots, noted music scholar, and Oscar-winning documentarian, took to Instagram on Sunday to give his review of the Dead & Company Dead Forever residency at Las Vegas, NV’s Sphere, which he attended on Saturday, July 6th. Ever the studious observer of music and the stories through which it’s mythologized, Questlove invoked nuanced comparisons to U2‘s Sphere show, reflected on his own first Grateful Dead show back in the ’90s, and referenced unlikely similarities between the Dead and the Roots in his commentary.
“So I was one of the fortunate few who saw the one [U2] show in which none of the magic technology at [Sphere] was working,” Questlove wrote, providing background for his take. “The reason why the show was special is they coulda easily called it off or held us for an hour while they rebooted. Instead they were forced to pivot to the 1985 no bells no whistles no tricks no Time cover version of the band with 6 mics, 2 acoustic guitar 4 lights and one camera working and it was great to see the struggle and the uncertainty—-it humanized them in ways I don’t think they had a chance to be In decades.”
“I needed to see that performance for my own benefit,” he continued, “but that don’t mean li [sic] gave up on seeing just how powerful a show in this venue could be. Enter [Dead & Company] w [John Mayer]. Who gave a hell of an astral travel display last night. Back in 95 we went to our first dead show (ran into [Branford Marsalis] while on tour w [Beastie Boys] in Houston & he invited us to a Dead show & I got thrown into the culture from a studious angle ——people kept calling us [The Roots] The Hip Hop Dead…..so I decided to study the model (s/o to [Dan Petruzzi] for the schooling) and I’ve seen many a show in different configurations ——-but THIS one took the cake. Enjoyed every aspect immensely 🙏🏾.”
While Questlove was first turned on to live Dead by renowned jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis, a veteran Grateful Dead collaborator, the drummer’s long-running connection to Dead & Company guitarist John Mayer is also notable. The two have crossed paths on various occasions, from appearing together in the now-famous “What Makes White People Dance” sketch on Chappelle’s Show in 2004 to performing alongside the likes of D’Angelo and Alicia Keys in NYC 2016 to their last-minute, COVID-prompted team-up at Madison Square Garden in 2022.
Check out the setlist from Saturday’s Dead & Company Sphere show below or revisit our full coverage of the performance here. View the photos and videos posted by Questlove from his first Dead & Company Sphere show below.
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Setlist: Dead & Company | Sphere | Las Vegas, NV | 7/6/24
Set One: Iko Iko (Sugar Boy and His Cane Cutters) (with ‘Man Smart, Woman Smarter’ snippet), Shakedown Street > The Music Never Stopped, Big Railroad Blues (Cannon’s Jug Stompers), Row Jimmy, Sugaree (Jerry Garcia), One More Saturday Night (Bob Weir)
Set Two: Greatest Story Ever Told (Bob Weir), Mr. Charlie, Estimated Prophet > Eyes of the World > Drums > Space > Uncle John’s Band, Cumberland Blues, Hell in a Bucket, Morning Dew (Bonnie Dobson), Old News Broadcast of the Grateful Dead
Encore: Sugar Magnolia
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