On Thursday night, Dead & Company continued their fall North American tour with a stop in the city of brotherly love at Philadelphia's Wells Fargo Center. Trailing their inaugural gig in Albany and a 2-night jaunt in New York City, Grateful Dead members Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart joined by John Mayer, Oteil Burbridge and Jeff Chimenti ran through a series of Dead classics over a two-set performance that opened with "Here Comes Sunshine."
Off the bat, the group hit a snag with the opening track's intro, but quickly found their groove as the Mayer-led song trucked on. For the first Dead & Company performance of "Loose Lucy," Weir took the reigns on vocals as the debut performances continued on with "Candyman" and "Mississippi Half Step," a Jerry Garcia staple. As a few repeat tracks from the tour ensued, the first set brought about a lovely rendition of "Bird Song" which segued into a lively "Cumberland Blues." Closing out the first set and making its tour debut was "Casey Jones," which incited a mini crowd riot stemming from pure excitement.
The second set rolled out "Iko Iko," originally by The Rhythm Devils, and "Feel Like A Stranger" before taking another shot at "China"/"Rider" and the expected "Drums"/"Space" installment of the show. Mayer, who has had quite an impressive run thus far, had his best instrumental moments during the Weir-led "Standing On The Moon." The second set concluded with American Beauty favorite, "Sugar Magnolia," while the encore brought about "U.S. Blues" for the first time, as Jambase notes.
The group most recently executed a one-of-a-kind American Express Unstaged event where 10,000 tickets were given away to contest-winning fans for free. For those who didn't win a pair of tickets, a livestream of the third Madison Square Garden gig has been made available for fans to watch for a full 24-hours trailing the performance, Rolling Stone reports.
