The Dead

[Drunk Monk]

Dead & Company Coming Back to Las Vegas’ Sphere in 2025 for 18-Show Spring Residency

Chris Willman
December 4, 2024 at 7:25 AM
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Dead & Company’s successful 2024 residency at Las Vegas’ Sphere will get a reprise. As expected, the band is returning to the venue in 2025, with a two-month stay announced Wednesday that will see the group playing three nights a week on select weekends from mid-March through mid-May, for a total of 18 shows
All the Sphere concerts take place on Thursday through Saturday of their respective weeks. The concerts are set for March 20-22, March 27-29, April 17-19, April 24-26, May 9-11 and May 15-17.
The spring dates will come as a relief to many Dead fans, who flocked repeatedly to the group’s 2024 shows in Las Vegas in sweltering summer weather, and could be found in forums ever since begging the band to come back and set up shop again in 2025, but in a cooler season.
While the group’s ’24 residency got extensions, the announcement for these shows — officially billed as “Dead & Company: Dead Forever – Live at Sphere” — says these are the band’s “only Sphere shows in 2025.” The 18-show run is notably shorter than the 30 dates the band ultimately booked for the first go-round this year.
Note that it doesn’t specify these are the only shows in 2025, period — it’s widely speculated that Dead & Company may be commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Grateful Dead in other ways as the year progresses. The announcement for the residency does not take any special notice of the mothership band’s 60th, but does mention that it marks the 10th anniversary of the offshoot group itself.
Sphere tickets, which begin at $145 all-in, will go on sale in stages. An artist presale begins Tuesday at 10 a.m. PT, with sign-ups for that presale already underway. The general on-sale begins three days later, on Dec. 13 at 10 a.m. But for those who really want to get a jump on things and have a little extra spending cash, VIP and travel packages go on sale Thursday of this week.
Presale sign-ups and other ticket information can be found [url=https://deadandcompany.com/]here.

The announcement promises “updated visuals” for the 2025 residency, which is no surprise since, even in the band’s initial stay at Sphere, the visual elements were never exactly the same from night to night, and additional big-screen setpieces were being added even late into the residency.
The Dead & Company lineup includes original Grateful Dead members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart, along with John Mayer, who shares co-frontman duties with Weir, and Oteil Burbridge, Jeff Chimenti and Jay Lane.
Another Grateful Dead co-founder, Bill Kreutzmann, had bowed out of Dead & Company before what was advertised as their final tour in 2023. But he is expected to be on hand when the Dead is collectively saluted as MusiCares’ Persons of the Year at a gala banquet just before the Grammys in late January. Another original Grateful Dead member, Phil Lesh, who did not take part in Dead & Company, died on Oct. 25 of this year.
Reviews were almost uniformly positive from fans and critics for the 2024 residency at Sphere. Variety‘s first-night review called the opening “astounding” on both visual and musical levels. “If this has a chance of being a last stand, attending fans will go out happy, crying and overstimulated,” the review said — but, of course, there was nothing final about it.
In a subsequent interview with Variety in June, midway through the residency, Weir said he “wouldn’t be surprised if we get invited back,” adding about the landmark combination of music and visuals, “I think we’re only scratching the surface here

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Seen on one of the “what to do in the bay area” emails

https://gay.dothebay.com/events/2024/12/...ag-tickets

BERTHA: Grateful Drag

Saturday, December 14 | The UC Theatre

"Nashville's BERTHA gives the Dead an irreverent, joyful makeover" - Rolling Stone

"The musicians of BERTHA are proving that drag queens and the Grateful Dead are not such strange bedfellows" - Yahoo Entertainment

The world’s first Grateful Drag band, BERTHA is an all-star collective of queer and allied East Nashville talent coming together in wigs and full face for a good cause. Fronted by a harmony trio of Berthas and backed by a rocking all-Bertha band, they are bringing the good times to Berkeley!

HOST QUEEN: Nicki Jizz 
BENEFICIARY ORG: 

• TGI Justice Project 
  
• Grateful Guitars Foundation
  

MUSICAL GUESTS:

• AJ Lee (solo) 
  
• Alex Jordan (solo) 
  
• David Gans (solo) 
  
• Hattie and Joe Craven (performing together) 
  
• The T Sisters 
  

General Admission Standing Room with Limited Seating

—tg

Bertha
Bertha: Grateful Drag