Dead & Company Round All The Bases & More at Fenway Park (SHOW REVIEWS)

Dead & Company’s two night run at Fenway Park made it perfectly clear that while John Mayer is in no way the heir to Jerry Garcia’s throne, the post-Jerry act may very well be the strongest Dead-related protect any of the surviving members have been apart of since Garcia’s passing over twenty years ago.

Grateful Dead co-founders Bob Weir (guitar/vocals), and drummers Mickey Hart and Billy Kreutzmann regrouped after the Core Four’s Fare Thee Well performances with Phish’ Trey Anastasio last summer and decided that they wanted to keep the train rolling, even if bassist Phil Lesh wasn’t taking part. Subbing in on bass is Oteil Burbridge, former member of The Allman Brothers and covering keys is Jeff Chimenti who has been playing with Weir on every almost every Post-Dead project he’s been apart of. Last but not least, on lead guitar and vocals is John Mayer…. Yes, that John Mayer.

When rumors began circulating that Mayer was going to be leading a Dead project the Fratdog jokes started early but his performance at Fenway Park was a thesis statement, proving once and for all that he’s the most vital guitarist to the Dead songbook to sub in for Jerry over the past twenty years.  Warren Hayne’s two guest stints with The Dead in ’04 and ’09 were met positively by critics but a lot of die hard Deadheads derided his approach to the material. Many felt he was going rogue and cared more about his own style than adapting to the voicings and tones of the group he was playing with.

From 2009-2014 guitarist John Kadlecik joined Phil Lesh and Bob Weir in Further but seeing as he was effectively poached from Dead tribute act Dark Star Orchestra, Kadlecik masterfully mimicked the tone of Jerry Garcia. but as a hired gun, never had the chutzpah to push the boundaries or bring anything new to the conversation. Further felt like an act trying to trace over the signature of The Grateful Dead rather than have any kind of identity of their own.

Anastasio has the chops and credentials to blaze a path when sharing the stage with the Core Four, but in a genre that requires developing musical rapport, the five Fare Thee Well performances weren’t enough to allow Anastasio or the Core Four to get comfortable playing with each other. To his credit, Anastasio was the MVP of collaboration, but with all its sentimental value as a goodbye, the performances were slow and incredibly sloppy.

All of this brings us to the present. Following a successful Fall Tour, Dead & Company have found their voice and are firing off on all cylinders. Over their two nights at Fenway, the first night looked better on paper, but night two was the best this writer has heard any post-Jerry project sound.  Fans of the late-60’s Live/Dead material were thrilled when the group started their second set on Friday night with “St. Stephen” and segued right into a nearly 20 minute “Dark Star.” The highlight of the night was a take on ”Morning Dew” that showcased Mayer at his most emotive and musically articulate. Rather than running up and down the fret board, he spaced the notes out perfectly to the point where every pluck of the strings had a purpose. His work during “Morning Dew” was a story with a start, middle and ending and didn’t just abruptly end like some of the night’s earlier solos.

Friday Night certainly had its highlights but it could have been a lot tighter. The solos were all barn-burners but it seemed like the folks onstage had a hard time seguing from the solo back into the meat of the tune. On the topic of transitions, D&C tried to flow from song to song, making the entire set feel like one long jam, but this was another area where things fell flat. The Holy Trinity of “Help Is On The Way,” “Slipknot!” and “Franklin’s Tower” are often performed back to back to back. The three songs are effectively a single suite of material but the jump from “Slipknot” into “Franklin’ Tower” was flubbed and awkward

Saturday night corrected all of the errors they made on Friday and was a statement performance that will both convert the naysayers and have longtime fans talking whenever Summer 2016 is brought up. The first set started with “Truckin’,” one of their most beloved vehicles for improvisation and kept flowing from song to song until they took a set break following “Going Down The Road Feelin’ Bad.” Where the night before sounded like a band that was trying to find their footing in an acoustical snake pit (the stage was set up in the center field triangle that has been the vein of existence of MLB outfielders for over a century), D&C performed the second night’s first set with a confidence and precision that was impossible to miss.

The second set started out with a “Playing In The Band” and was highlighted by an exceptionally fierce “Fire On The Mountain.” “Sugaree” can always be counted on as a high octane sing-a-long and this was no exception, but following the chorus, Mayer dug deep into a solo that was the instrumental highlight of the two-night run. Mayer has been using a PRS guitar that he’s had routed and customized to include a third humbucker pickup, in addition to a great deal of modified circuitry that allows him to get closer to that iconic creamy, phased-out guitar tone of Jerry Garcia’s. But for this tune, Mayer strapped on a standard model PRS and dove head first into the jam using a tone that was all his own.

The Fenway “Sugaree” is a case study in what makes Dead & Company so much more fun to watch than RatDog, Phil & Friends, Further or The Dead. On a classic Dead-tune, they stayed true to the format generations of fans have grown to love, but Mayer was able to infuse his own style and charisma into the fold in ways his predecessors just haven’t. John Mayer is the reason Weir, Hart and Kreutzmann were playing two nights at the 37,000 capacity home of the Boston Red Sox. When Further came to town, they played venues that maxed out at 6k, but Mayer is an arena draw in his own right. He’s dedicated himself to learning over one hundred songs from their catalogue and as a student of music, holds great reverence for Garcia, The Dead and position he is currently in. Mayer is a charismatic performer with the energy to push the band farther than a guy like Kadlecik would ever take them.

Jerry Garcia was the undisputed leader of the Grateful Dead and through his silent charisma, managed to be the center of attention during any Dead show. For the first time since his passing, Garcia’s surviving bandmates have a lead guitarist to play with who is comfortable taking the spotlight and skilled enough to hold onto it.  Mayer’s reverence for the Grateful Dead as a multigenerational musical institution keeps his notorious ego in check and allows for a dynamic that pushes everyone involved harder and farther than they have in years.

Weir sounds better than he has in at least ten years and Hart has taken the “Drums” and “Space” segment of each show into a new digital era, executing a symphonic journey of psychedelic experimentation and boundary expansion with the utilization of a variety of percussive tools and toys run through a variety of effects, samplers, and multiple MIDI interfaces.

Dead & Company walks a fine line between modernization while honoring both legacy and tradition.  It’s no easy feat to make material a half-century-old sound fresh but Dead & Company pulls it off. The Summer of 2016 is proving to have an unfortunate amount of violent parallels to the Summer of 1969, but both Summers will be remembered as great times for the music of the Grateful Dead. If you tuned out following Garcia’s passing in 1995, Dead & Company’s two-night run at Fenway Park is declaration that it’s time to dig out your old tour gear, get a decent pair of earplugs, come back into the fray and smile, smile, smile.