Music of the Sphere(s)
The two men next to me, one dressed like he came straight from the golf course and the other as if he needed everyone to know he likes Phish more than who all 20,000 or so of us were here to see tonight, were debating if that light coming through the garage door, slightly ajar off stage right, was real. What about that truck back there, the one next to a rolling flight case? Eventually, as these things tend to go when waiting for a jam band concert to start, they turned to me and asked me to settle it for them.
“None of that is real. The only real lights in this place are those, above the stage, and way up there at the top” I offered, pointing them out with $19 beer in hand, the golf attire one leaning closer to me to see exactly what I was pointing at.
“No way. Wait. So all of that scaffolding isn’t real?” I shook my head no back at them. The show had not started yet, but we were already debating if our eyes were deceiving our brains.
From there, Sphere (which, throughout, I will have to default to writing as “the Sphere”, because it just creates such a weird grammatical quirk that I have a hard time abiding by and this is my blog so deal with it, Dolan) continued to prove itself as what can comfortably be called the next step forward in live audio/visual entertainment. It really is that good, that astounding, and that much fun to experience a concert in.
Even I, a big Sphere non-believer when the first images of the completed, somewhat biblical demon looking, structure started surfacing online, must admit that they’ve pulled it off. The damn thing works. Videos and stills from the venue’s first residency, featuring aging Irish rockers U2 performing 40 shows with little-to-no variation between them, had some cool visual tricks, but reviews made sure to mention that only a couple of songs took full advantage of the massive display that is the true centerpiece of the arena-style venue. The tales of production woes getting even those few visuals to the finish line are well documented.
However, we were here to see Dead and Company, the current (maybe/likely final) touring (but not, more on that later) iteration of what remains of the Grateful Dead. Under the banner of Dead Forever, a residency starting in mid-May and currently slated to run through early August, appears alongside the Dead Forever Experience, a two story exhibition (one story of which is really just off-site merch and sponsor promotions) hosted next door at the Venetian Resort. Tickets were about as easy to acquire via Ticketmaster as one could imagine, though plenty were to be found on the secondhand market the day of the show too. Throughout the weekend, anywhere one went on The Strip, tie-dyed and sandal-wearing heads were abound, constantly stopping each other with “did you go last night? How was it?” and “are you going tonight?” or, maybe just as frequently, a silent nod a thumbs up or shaka with one hand while pointing to their shirt and your shirt and back to their shirt. A silent recognition that, as always, we’re everywhere.
The Venue
Entry to the Sphere was as simple as walking over, (there is a pedestrian bridge from the Venetian, however it was closed for the weekend of our show), or more aptly through, as given the excessive heat warnings in place we opted to cut through the main floor of the Venetian and out the back to stick to oxygen drenched air conditioning and out into the shade for as much time as possible. Then, follow the signs for your entrance, split between general admission floor seating, VIP and/or reserved suites, and anyone else in a ticketed seat. Walk up, scan your ticket, walk through a metal detector, and away you go. All in all, as seamless an entry as one could hope for an audience of multi-generational, multi-substance imbibing hippies. Almost assuredly, there are some facial recognition cameras around (this is a MSG property, after all), but the lines moved quickly and smoothly. Once you enter, there are plenty of food and beverage options throughout, including self-checkout grab and go drink coolers and snack stands, as well as merch booths throughout the first floor. Clearly marked staff were around to help give directions if there was anything you couldn’t find. Bathroom lines were marked and had staff ushering people along to keep the flow of traffic moving. The entire non-venue area of the Sphere was bathed in slowly shifting rainbow tie dye colors, people quickly queued up to grab whatever coveted piece of “I was there” merch they wanted, and made their way towards their sections. Notably, not once throughout the rest of the four and a half hour night did anyone ask to see mine or any of my party’s tickets to verify that we were where we were supposed to be. Plenty of people could be seen milling around looking for a better angle in the section they started in, or changing to a different section or level entirely. The only time any of the staff or ushers flickered a flashlight was if someone was obstructing the stairwell for too long. Somewhat more surprisingly, (or not, if you’d already seen the guy who managed to bring in and smoke a glass bong to one of the Phish shows), no one made any scene about smoking or vaping, despite there being more than one “this is a no-smoking establishment” signs on the way in.After grabbing some souvenirs and beverages, we made our way towards our seats in the 100 section, in row 24, the first row of what the venue now refers to as “obstructed view” after a brief PR disaster during the early U2 shows where people who had paid full 100’s-level prices found themselves barely able to see the stage or the screen due to the 200’s-level mezzanine above their seats. The prices were adjusted after the first few shows, splitting the 100’s in half, with those closer to the stage and out from the overhang at the original price and a new slightly lower price for the “obstructed view” seats. My friend who I was seated next to, and who had gotten our tickets, had done his research and was correct: the only obstruction was if we were trying to look directly up. If our eyes were towards the stage, it was a panoramic view of the GA area, stage, and an eye-full of screen.
Doors were at 6:00PM with the show scheduled to start at 7:30PM, and both via email and social media we were recommended to get there early as we wouldn’t want to miss the start of the show. Given how quick and easy entry was, we made it to our seats with maybe 20 or 30 minutes to spare before scheduled start. There was music playing and some type of slight visual action (lights flickering or changing, things moving) throughout the pre-show backdrop of a large arena stage site full of scaffolding and winding stairs. The band took the stage at 7:36PM and started playing less than a minute later.
The Show
Unlike U2, Dead and Co. are sticking true to the live Dead ideology; no two shows are alike and you won’t hear the same setlist twice, let alone the same song more than once over a three show weekend. Once the lack of repeat performances was confirmed, the next question that got a quick answer was if the show would repeat visuals night to night, to which the answer is largely… sort of. The show takes place over two sets, per typical Dead show, and opens and closes the same way every night. There are enough visuals that every song (or in some cases, when songs blurred together, let's call it two songs) had its own distinct accompanying visual set piece, ranging from starting at the stoop of the house where the band lived in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, and then taking off and rising until the view was of the entire planet, and then outer space, to psychedelic kaleidoscopic ink-in-water and tie-dye swirling, all the way to a three story tall Uncle Sam skeleton riding a motorcycle into a globe of death. Every visual was pretty engaging, making it the first arena style show where you don’t have everyone focusing at the same point and looking at the band on stage. With many sequences making use of the full height and width of the screen, you’d often see other members of the audience pointing to something way off to the side to call out to their friends. Throughout, almost every visual had at least some section of the screen showing IMAG footage, live closeups of the band on stage, utilizing remote controlled cameras on tracks around the stage and arena so that there was always still a pretty good view of the musicians without cameramen running in front of them. This might be my one gripe with how the band is utilizing the screen, there were some visuals that likely would’ve been just as fun if not more so without the added picture-in-picture IMAG masked in, blending reality in front of us with surreality on screen.While the visuals are the most obvious thing (this is a 160,000 square foot screen we’re talking about), maybe a more astounding feature for live performance is the sound. Hidden behind that giant screen is a massive assortment of beamforming speaker arrays, allowing for directional sound to be amplified towards every seat in the venue. Wherever you were sitting (from speaking to multiple friends and family members who have seen shows from various sections and rows), it sounds like you’re in the center sweet spot with clear sound and discernable differences in the sonic landscape. So even though we were fairly to the left of the stage, we could hear clearly when the sound engineers panned channels left to right (or in some cases, front to back.) I’ve been to a fair amount of concerts over my lifetime, the sound here is phenomenal and without the need for earplugs to protect my hearing from what you’d often find in an arena, where bands may be forced to trade clarity for volume to ensure everyone can hear the music. During the second set landmark of Drums and Space, which a friend who had gone to an earlier show had recommended I take my seat for, I understood why. Each seat or row is outfitted with speakers and some level of haptic vibration. Between the deep bass notes of the percussion section and whatever other vibrations were going on, you could feel certain drum hits in your chest without the volume being so overwhelming it would hurt your ears.
Show Notes
Dead and Company, 05/31/2024, Sphere, Las Vegas NVOutside of Drums and Space and some of the slower ballads of the night (Stella Blue, Black Muddy River), most everyone was on their feet the entire time. Anticipation, and the general energy, in the venue pre-show was high and the band matched that throughout. Impeccable solos from everyone across the next few hours remind me what I said leaving my last show at Citi Field last summer: it sure would be a shame if the “Final Tour” was the end of this iteration, because they’d never sounded better.
Set One:
7:37PM
As the house lights come down, the band launches hard into Shakedown Street. The bare-stage scaffolding becomes backlit with red, white, and blue.
As Mayer and Chimenti set a twinkling intro to Jack Straw, the scaffolding begins to split open down the middle, with the edges forming, briefly, the Dead’s signature 13-point lightning bolt, to reveal the front steps of 710 Ashbury Street, with a superimposed caption denoting “Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco.” Slowly the camera pulls away from the house and looks down, giving the audience a somewhat-stomach-churning bird's eye view of the Bay Area, continuing to pull up and up until the band was soon backed by the entire planet. Panning up, the band almost floating off into a starscape. For full effect and a reminder of what the venue is capable of, the International Space Station flies overhead, back to front, with a loud enough whoosh that more than one person in our vicinity practically ducks for cover before laughing it off. For a while, we got to look out over the stars, before a floating feathered rectangle gave us a close up on Mayer’s famous guitarface, now superimposed over the milky way.
As the band riffed through the start of New Speedway Boogie, we’re sent through a stormy lightning filled cloudy wormhole that spits us out into a barren desert landscape, with hyperlapse weather moving through the sky. In fast-forward, we see the band’s (and largely Owsley Stanley's) impressive live sound rig, The Wall of Sound, get constructed. As the rig comes together, two banners unfurl, one from each side, serving as another opportunity for live picture-in-picture of the band. With the song’s end, we fade to black, leaving the band lit with a few on-stage lights.
As the band launches into (an almost reggae twinged) Jimmy Row, we are flying towards what looks like the California coast at sunset, low over the ocean. As we approach the cliffs, suddenly, we take a sharp turn down and dive, a moment that caught myself among many others, judging by the audible gasps, by surprise. As we dive, neon colored fish, plankton, and other underwater blob-life float up from the bottom of the space, with some featuring live pictures from the stage once again. As we reach the bottom of the sea, we’re met with a giant sunken pirate ship, its sails painted with Stealie skulls and roses. Not shown on screen but perceptible from our seats, Bob Weir is using his guitar as an oar for at least one verse. Neon coral and jellyfish change colors and pulse to the music. The whole thing feels a little Nikelodeon, honestly. This visual might be the most divisive among those who’ve seen it.
As Jimmy ends, we are sent through a porthole of the ship, bright warm light fills the space and then slowly becomes inked in with a spiral tie dye pattern as the band kicks into a swinging Tennesse Jed. With the fan-favorite “Sleep all day / Rock all night” line, John Mayer is seen duck walking across the stage a la Angus Young of AC/DC. Mayer and Chimenti once again both mind meld to lay in some extremely bluesy solos here, trading Muddy Waters-esque licks. As the song progresses, the tie dye colors begin shifting and the band’s marching bears make an appearance, marching in a spiral pattern and growing in size, becoming maybe a story or taller by the time they reach the outer edges of the Sphere’s screen. As the song ends, we once again fade to black.
The screen fades back to life, a red curtain draping the entire screen, with the lower-screen house lights coming back on for the first time since the show started, blending digital and practical lighting against the curtain in reds and blues. As the band jams their way into the signature intro progression of Playing In The Band, the curtain opens revealing a giant floating chrome-coated Stealie adorned with metallic roses, reminiscent of some of the 1990’s Liquid Blue merchandise for the Dead. The center circle of the Stealie serves again as live feed for the stage.
As PITB ends, with Bob Weir giving a clear visual hand signal to wrap things up, I would’ve guessed we were hitting the end of the first set. Instead, the Dead steal a trick from U2’s visuals, transforming the curved screen into a cube, lined with a dizzying amount of posters, ticket stubs, and backstage passes spanning the Grateful Dead’s long strange history and launch into Don’t Ease Me In. Some elements fade in and out, allowing space for live shots of the band to peek through. For a few brief moments, it feels as if someone was slowly using a scroll wheel, the whole space shifting vertically (again, causing some nausea for some folks for sure.) About halfway through the song, and on beat, the entire scene inverts, creating a blacklight poster effect of neon colors on a black background. The neon elements then get repeated into a disappearing point and twist around, giving yet another treat for the psychedelic inclined members of the audience. After another round of solos, the band’s only speech to the audience of the night signals it's time for intermission, they’ll be back in just a little bit.
8:55PM
After a moment, the house lights come up to about half brightness and the entire screen is illuminated in neon pink, with choice lyrics stretching across the screen, each staying up for about a minute.
We reconvene with our group to grab another round of drinks and poke our heads out at the 200 level, spotting the A/V control stations nestled here, and getting a brief idea of the huge perspective shifts from level to level, or at least from the 100’s to anything higher up.
I can’t think of any other major concert venues I’ve seen do this, but they do the whole “flash the house lights” to give a five minute warning that intermission is about to end. We make our way back down to our seats.
9:33PM
House lights fully go down and the band retake the stage. Oteil has found a pair of wayfarer style sunglasses and, per my notes, “looks cool as fuck.”
A brief moment of tune up and checking pedals and the band begins playing the instantly recognizable opening riff to Uncle John’s Band, a song I have known by heart since I was a kid. The screen fills with a paint by numbers coloring book page (I haven’t been able to match it with any video online, but I have to imagine an easy alley-oop to match Touch of Grey’s “Paint by number morning sky / Looks so phony” here) depicting a stream winding through an autumnal forest. As colors fill in, one can clock a Terrapin Station-esque log cabin, way off stage left, with an oddly detailed Jerry Garcia can be found leaning up against the wall on the front porch. A sail boat appears over the horizon, making its way down stream. Eventually with the screen maybe 80% filled in, a rainbow arcs its way across the center view and beneath fills in, once again, with a live shot of the band appearing between the bottom of the rainbow and the horizon. Way off at either far end of the screen, cartoon turtles have walked out onto cliffs overlooking the scene, one playing a banjo and the other a tambourine. Towards the end of the song, when the band kind of goes up an octave for the last few verses, the colors all shift to a neon-soaked night time. As the song ends, we fade to black.
A blues riff kicks in that, briefly, could’ve headed towards Mr. Charlie but instead moves right on into the intro to China Cat Sunflower. Rather than a full fade-to-black transition into the next visual spectacle, supersaturated slow-motion ink in water visuals start flowing upwards from behind the stage, backing the band with psychedelic swirls. As the song progresses, these visuals begin to mirror and kaleidoscope, coming in from all directions. By the first chant of “China Cat,” our eyes are drawn down to the left side of the GA pit where it appears the spinners are fully going for it, a small section of whirling dervishes having their moment. Blended in between the colorful layers, close ups of the band's hands begin fading in and out as colors start shifting.
As sure of a thing as one can guess at a Dead show, we move from China into I Know You Rider, completing one of the natural pairings of live Dead songs (colloquially known and as written across tapes for years and years as “China>Rider”.) The inky water visuals slide down the screen to reveal an almost Playstation graphics looking sunset, as we pan down we find ourselves looking at the front doors of the Winterland Ballroom, home to more than one of the Dead’s famous concerts. We push through one of the upper windows of Winterland and find ourselves in Barton Hall at Cornell, home of the legendary 5/8/77 show. There is an audible yelp of excitement at this. We slowly push our way through the rear windows of Barton Hall and land at Red Rocks, with a day-glo orange sunset and numerous Dead icons scrawled up on the rocks to our sides. Flying over the rear of the amphitheater we land in front of the Fillmore West, topped with a Workingman’s Dead billboard. We move just around the corner and suddenly find ourselves on the east coast, as Radio City Music Hall comes into fruition and expands up and up and up, as out walk Uncle Sam and Bertha skeletons, leaning over the venue to recreate the Dead Ahead album cover. We go around the corner once again and zoom down the street to land at Madison Square Garden, complete with King Kong in a tie-dye tee shirt. Mayer tops the song with an extended solo with Oteil backing it up with some Phil Lesh style deep big bass drops.
As Rider ends, the screen goes bright, and we find ourselves once again floating in space among orbiting planets and stars circling each other. The band launches into a noodling improvisational jam and quickly the crowd around us starts debating where this is going to land. Chimenti is winding his way through chords on a heavily affected digital keyboard, reminiscent of later 80’s Dead. A few around us agree, it could be Bird Song, or at least it sounds like it's heading that way. Wait, no. Not Bird Song. There is a collective holler that spreads throughout the entire audience as we realize…
It’s Dark Star.
Bob Weir is pushing the limits of his vocal range but nails the notes into the first verse, as the dark inky blues of the background shift to warm, grain soaked oranges and yellows. We land down on one of the swirling planets on a rocky desert with curving structures framing more visuals of the band. Settling into an extended groove, the band sounds locked in, trading riffs and solos. As they land the final verse, a rarity to get a complete Dark Star these days, the front of stage members depart the stage.
It’s time for Drums. Mickey Hart and Jay Lane launch into a rather fast paced percussion groove as the screen slowly starts filling with kaleidoscopic color tinted images of forests. As Otiel makes his way back on stage, alongside a mystery sit-in guest (following, from the previous weekend, another percussion sit-in from Karl Perazzo, percussionist for Santana) which we manage to confirm post show was legendary tabla player and percussionist Zakir Hussein. As the four begin settling into their groove, a video clip of the just recently passed Bill Walton on stage, taking part in Drums with Mickey and Bill Kreutzmann, is superimposed above the stage, one of a few tributes to the friend of the band and one of the world’s biggest (literally, figuratively) deadheads. Morphing from the kaleidoscope, the screen is taken over with a mandala of percussion instruments, a giant drum in the center sometimes used as a video feed. Plenty of folks take their seats, as do I, which gives an additional element to the performance: haptic feedback as bass notes move through the stadium and are amplified by waves of vibration from the floor and seats.
Three of tonight’s Rhythm Devils leave the stage, as Mickey Hart moves over to his signature creation The Beam, marking the start of Space. As the sonic journey continues, my notes mark two things: “the Sphere was designed for Drums>Space” and “all the spinners are just laying down.” The visuals cycle between a color-filled 3D brain that breaks open to reveal extensive kaleidoscopes that break apart to reveal another color-filled brain that breaks open to reveal the kaleidoscope…
After a bit, Mickey leaves the stage as the rest of the band reappears. The screen fills with a blue to black gradient, setting the space in a cool tone. A piano twinkle and guitar riff set them off into Stella Blue. Otiel, still wearing his shades, leans up against a stool as the walking bass riff starts. Weir croons his way through the forlorn romance of the song. Black and white live footage of the band sits over the stage, further setting the mood. The drummers make their way back behind their kits in time to finish off the song as a cohesive whole.
With the crescendo ending of Stella Blue, Mayer begins a riff as the scene transforms into a nighttime ocean with northern lights twisting their way across our view. A massive roar of applause as the first verse of the Lady With a Fan intro begins. As the aurora borealis ramps in intensity we make our way into Terrapin Station. The oceanscape fades from view as the screen fills with an intricate spiral pattern, first in red and blue against the black background and then in a rainbow of colors, shifting and morphing like an oil slick atop water. There are few things that get a Dead show moving like Terrapin, with the collective chant and almost tomahawk arm chopping for the chorus' “Some rise / Some fall / Some climb…” refrains. The colorful spirals fade to black.
As the band is launching into a bluesy jam, a new trick out of the hat as it is revealed there are more physical lights embedded behind the screen, now pulsing outwards from the center in flashing red. As we settle into the opening of Hell In A Bucket, the screen comes to life again, placing us in a graveyard at dusk. Rising from the grave is, again, Uncle Sam the skeleton, taking up almost the entirety of available vertical space dancing to the groove. As we pull back from the scene into a bed of roses, Uncle Sam is flanked by more, rainbow colored skeletons, taking their hats off and tap dancing along. Eventually we zoom back in, as Uncle Sam mounts a motorcycle and takes off through the back of the graveyard and starts down a more color drenched western landscape, through cowboy towns with zoetropic-like scenery animation as we zoom on by.
We crossfade once again to the night sky as the band settles into Black Muddy River, Earth begins peeking up from behind the stage. With the blue marble settling back centered on the screen, we begin in reverse of the opening of the show, descending back down towards the Bay Area. The band really locks in here, with harmonies across Chimenti, Mayer, Weir, and Burbridge quite literally bringing some folks around me to tears.
As the song ends, we once again land in front of 710 Ashbury, but now in a rendered, 60’s era. Old cars out front, and a hippie couple walk out and sit on the front stoop. The stage lights go out as an old radio spot on the Grateful Dead plays over the PA, we zoom in to the second floor window and see a silhouette of the original band practicing. As the radio broadcast ends, the screen cuts to black, and with a loud wham, the words
DEAD FOREVER
stretch across the Sphere, filling with photos of the Grateful Dead, to thunderous applause.
We push in, through the text, to find ourselves in a wall of archival photos, as the band rips into a jamming Casey Jones. The photos slowly move and shift, fading in and out to give us footage of the live band, walking us through a photo album of the band’s history. Towards the end of the song, we sit on a photo of Jerry Garcia, huge over the stage. For the final chorus, the screen is almost filled side to side with live shots of the band and blue lights from behind the screen illuminating the space.
11:42 PM
As a standing ovation begins, footage from the foot of the stage as the band takes their bows has a silhouette of Bill Walton, hands outstretched above his head, overlaid. As the band exits, the screen fades to black again, before a tribute to Walton, his number 32 inlaid with tie-dye, upon a bed of roses, fills the screen. After a few minutes, the house lights begin to rise and we make our way towards the exit, spat out into the heat of desert night once again.
Set 1:
Shakedown Street
Jack Straw
New Speedway Boogie
Row Jimmy
Playing in the Band
Don’t Ease Me In
Shakedown Street
Jack Straw
New Speedway Boogie
Row Jimmy
Playing in the Band
Don’t Ease Me In
Set 2:
Uncle John’s Band
Chinacat Sunflower > I Know You Rider
Dark Star
Drums (with Zakir Hussain) > Space
Stella Blue
Terrapin Station
Hell in a Bucket
Black Muddy River
Old News Broadcast of the Grateful Dead
Casey Jones [Encore]
Uncle John’s Band
Chinacat Sunflower > I Know You Rider
Dark Star
Drums (with Zakir Hussain) > Space
Stella Blue
Terrapin Station
Hell in a Bucket
Black Muddy River
Old News Broadcast of the Grateful Dead
Casey Jones [Encore]
Takeaway
Overall, I went in unsure of what to expect. I had tried to avoid as much social media and news coverage of the opening weekends of the Dead and Co. residency, to go in both open minded and unspoiled. The little museum experience at the Venetian (featuring: mini Wall of Sound, participation row, a collection of David Lemieux’s tapes, a photo gallery of the history of the Dead, and a small gallery of Mickey Hart’s art) was, frankly, done on the cheap for the most part, and while it was good to have another place to grab merch, the rest of it felt all kinda “meh.”The show itself, I cannot speak highly enough about. If you are into the Dead at all, it is well worth the cost of entry (plus the cost of getting flights and hotel rooms in Vegas, no cheap feat I can attest). The band sounds great, the venue sounds great, and the visuals are top notch creating a one-of-a-kind concert going experience. You can find cheaper drinks pre- and post-show, but the concession stands are exactly what one would expect out of an MSG owned and operated venue in Vegas. Many people, including one of our group who’s flight got delayed and then canceled, bought tickets for another night as soon as they could. It really is that much fun to go see.
Plenty of heads online have griped, given how prominently last summer’s tour was billed as “The Final Tour” about this extended run of shows. The band is kind of skating on a technicality, a residency is not a tour, they are staying in one place and you’ve got to make your way out to them. The dates have been extended twice so far, for a total of 30 Sphere shows. I would not be surprised if more visuals are added over the course of the run, and maybe a few more sit-in surprises as well.
If you like wild audio/visual shows, go. If you like jam bands, go. If you like just pure Vegas show spectacle, go. I have been converted to a full believer that this is one of the best places to see your favorite band play. Half of our group had never been to a Dead show, none of us had been to the sphere. All of us left saying we’d gladly go again, with newly anointed Deadheads following up for guided listening and album purchasing recommendations. Photos and videos do not do the experience justice.
Buy the ticket, take the ride, as they say…