Review: Dead & Company opens Sphere Las Vegas residency in epic fashion

The show would’ve blown away Owsley “Bear” Stanley.

Yes, even the famed LSD guru — who was also the sound engineer for the Grateful Dead and the architect for the band’s fabled “Wall of Sound,” before dying in 2011 — could never have dreamed up the full-force psychedelic-rock experience that was awaiting fans on opening night of Dead & Company’s “Dead Forever” run at the Sphere in Las Vegas on Thursday.

As the band played on, fans were transported — via the incredible hi-def video imagery that fills the 366-foot-tall dome-shaped venue — from the starting point of San Francisco right into space (which, we realize, some will contest is actually close to being the same thing). From there, fans chilled out in a gorgeous tropical garden, moseyed over into a old-school Western flick, hit a concert in the desert and somehow found themselves as part of a massive paint-by-number picture.

They watched giant terrapins play instruments, road about with a skeleton in patriotic garb and matched moves Dancing Bears.

Oh, yeah, and the music was pretty swell as well, as this phenomenally popular Grateful Dead offshoot — consisting of Dead alum Bob Weir on vocals and guitar and Mickey Hart on drums as well as vocalist-guitarist John Mayer, bassist Oteil Burbridge, keyboardist Jeff Chimenti and drummer Jay Lane — rolled through 19 songs during two very generous sets.

They took the stage right at 7:35 — just five minutes after the printed start time — and were still going strong nearly four hours later.

It was a great way to mark the return to the stage for Dead & Company, the Bay Area-rooted jam band that ended its blockbuster 2023 farewell tour with three sold-out shows at Oracle Park in San Francisco in July.

It was also the first of 24 nights that the band is scheduled to perform at the Sphere, which has quickly become arguably Las Vegas’ defining landmark as the dome pulses with amazing video imagery that can be seen from miles away. Fittingly, it was showing the Dead’s signature “steal your face” skull logo, as well as other graphics, as fans walked up to the building on Thursday.

“Dead Forever” is the second residency to be held at this $2 billion venue, which opened with an epic run by U2 in September. Overall, Dead & Company is the third act to play public concerts there — with fellow jam band Phish having taken the Sphere stage for four shows in back in April.

So what’s Dead & Co. doing playing shows so soon after selling hundreds of thousands of tickets on its farewell tour?

Well, technically speaking, the Sphere residency isn’t really a tour. So, the band is just grooving right through that loophole and straight to the bank as it performing shows, mostly on weekends, right through July 13 (deadandcompany.com).

The 18,000-or-so fans in attendance certainly weren’t worrying about semantics or technicalities as they enjoyed hearing such longtime favorites as “Jack Straw,” “Bird Song” and “Brown-Eyed Women” during what turned out to be a relatively mellow — musically speaking — first set.

Following a half-hour set break, the group turned up the heat in the second set with a powerful jam through the longtime musical partners “Help on the Way,” “Slipknot!” and “Franklin’s Tower, with the latter arguably being the musical highpoint of the overall show.

The graphics were downright intoxicating and, quite often, disorienting — as the eyes tried to make sense of what was pretty much nonstop sensory overload.

There were some points were I felt a bit dizzy, and even had a touch of motion sickness, as I tried to take in vain to take in everything that was happening across the towering video screens as the band continued through “He’s Gone,” “Standing on the Moon” and “St. Stephen.”

The downside of all these special effects — and, well, just plain light — vying for one’s attention is that it is really easy to literally lose sight of the actual musicians. They become, visually speaking, afterthoughts to everything that is going on.

Yet, there were points were everything jelled so nicely, such as when the group returned once again to outer space for a poignant version of Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and then closed the show with a triumphant run through Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away.”

The Sphere truly delivers a concert experience like none other. And there are very few, if any, bands that seem a better fit for what this venue can offer than Dead & Co.

Setlist:
1. “Feel Like a Stranger”
2. “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo”
3. “Jack Straw”
4. “Bird Song”
5. “Me and My Uncle”
6. “Brown-Eyed Women”
7. “Cold Rain and Snow”
Set 2:
8. “Uncle John’s Band”
9. “Help on the Way”
10. “Slipknot!”
11. “Franklin’s Tower”
12. “He’s Gone”
13. “Drums”
14. “Space”
15. “Standing on the Moon”
16. “St. Stephen”
17. “Hell in a Bucket”
18. “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”
19. “Not Fade Away”