San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle has a new podcast and spent much of the second episode talking about all things Grateful Dead with Barstool Sports‘ Big Cat. Kittle got introduced to the Band Beyond Description last spring when he took in Dead & Company at Sphere with 9ers teammates Christian McCaffery, Jake Tonges, Nick Bosa, and Kyle Juszczyk.
As a seasoned podcaster, Big Cat (aka Dan Katz) came on the second episode of The Kittle Things to show George and his wife Claire the ropes. Kittle suffered a hamstring injury in week one of the NFL season and isn’t expected to return to the field until at least week six, so why not pick up a new hobby? Among Kittle’s other more recent interests is a newfound affinity for the Grateful Dead, inspired by a show at the Sphere, which Big Cat was also at.
“I was on the second level, and I look down and I see this big, goofy idiot who’s bigger than everyone, just dancing having the time of his life,” Cat recalled of seeing Kittle at his first show. Though the two didn’t get a chance to talk face-to-face, Kittle had an encounter with some other Deadheads that cemented his love for the community.
“One of my favorite things about the Grateful Dead was the first time I went, it was me, Bosa, McCaffrey, Juice, and Jake Tundra, one of our tight ends,” Kittle said [Editor’s note: We’re going to just excuse Kittle referring to Dead & Company as the Grateful Dead throughout this article. We were all new once, too.] “And we go to the concert, have a great time, and then we go to the casino afterwards, and they’re all gambling. So, I’m sitting at one of the casino bars and two Deadheads sitting next to me, two guys in like their late 50s, early 60s, tie-dye t-shirts, and I talked to them for like an hour just sitting there having a conversation. It was so nice. One friend knew who I was. The other guy had no idea who I was, and we were just having a conversation. It was fantastic. … So inviting.”
Floored by the experience of his first show, Kittle brought Claire along for his second show another weekend. There, the veteran tight end learned that just like a game of football, no two Dead shows are exactly alike.
“I think my favorite thing was when we first walked in,” Kittle recalled, “and we’re waiting for the music to start, like as soon as the music and the first visuals come up, the entire arena just stands up and everyone’s just grooving. Everyone’s just vibing to the music. It’s so cool.”
Related: Bryan Cranston & Catherine O’Hara Tried Mushrooms For Dead & Company At Sphere [Watch]
Since then, Kittle appears to have dove (dead)headfirst into the band. His wardrobe choice of a tie-dye t-shirt with a 9ers helmet inside of a Stealie was no accident, as Claire outted her husband, “Did you notice his shirt? He wants you to compliment his shirt.” Asked by Cat whether he has a Grateful Dead tattoo yet, Kittle relented, “Not yet, let me get to five shows first.”
Beyond Kittle’s wardrobe, the Grateful Dead have become an everyday part of George’s life. In the car, he listens to the Dead playlist Cat sent him. It’s fun to imagine Kittle riding around the Bay in his Rolls-Royce Ghost to a bouncy ’78 “Estimated Prophet”.
“I tried to put one [show] on in the weight room and the guys were like, ‘What are we listening to?'” Kittle recalled, with Cat quipping, “If you want to win football games you probably shouldn’t put that on.”
Though the rest of the 9ers may not share his affinity for the Dead, fellow ‘Head on the roster Nick Bosa sure does, and the two will listen to the Dead in the weight room when it’s just the two of them. For more high-energy listening, Cat recommended Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, “he’s like a Dead cover band, and he’s got crazy tempo.”
“The music of the Grateful Dead has been like the constant in my life,” Cat explained, “in the fact that there’s times when you go away from it or don’t listen and you find other bands, but I always find myself going back. And I think the reason I do that is the history of what they’ve put out there and the way that they did it, where they actively embraced people bringing microphones and taping their concerts. So all their live music lives forever. … It’s not a band where it’s like, ‘All right, here there are four studio albums. Either you like it or you don’t.’ There’s just so many different iterations of the band itself, ’cause band members died and moved on. There’s so many iterations of songs and how they played them and what their instruments sounded like decade to decade. So it’s like it’s just like the ocean. It’s just as deep as possible.”
To combine their common love for the Dead, Sphere, and football, the trio staged a mock draft for who they’d want to see play with Dead & Company at Sphere. Split into three categories, Living/Dead/Fictional, it produced some pretty entertaining results. While Claire wanted to see more contemporary pop names like Noah Kahan with Dead & Co, Kittle picked Carlos Santana who has played with the actual Grateful Dead, and Cat went with a frontrunner for many jam bands, Billy Strings.
The dead artist category yielded legends like Prince (Claire) and Jimi Hendrix (George), while Cat made a smart play and chose Jerry Garcia and Brent Mydland to essentially reunite the ’80s Dead lineup at Sphere. Finally, the fictional category had some intriguing picks like the Cheeta Girls (Claire) and Lustra (the real band that sings “Scotty Doesn’t Know” in EuroTrip, George), while Cat’s and the Kittles’ age gap showed, with Cat not knowing who Lizzie McGuire is and George and Claire not knowing who Doug and his band The Beets are.
Check out the full episode of The Kittle Things, with George and Big Cat talking Grateful Dead at 9:36 and the fantasy draft starting at 20:47. While it’s great to see George doing what he loves, I can probably speak for all other fantasy managers who drafted him in the first round that we’d much prefer to see him back on the field (him and Bosa can listen to the Dead before the game if they want).
Big Cat Teaches Claire & George Kittle How To Podcast | The Kittle Things Ep. 2