Dead & Company 2023 Tour

Just to make people angry I vote Scrambled Greg.

I vote to end the endless Dead cover band trend. Joe Russo perfected it, Im good with that.

Yes.

I found this pretty interesting

m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0g9fZCkLzuKQvhMbJweucToXPK61iLLiXgeMqsmKKfkzsK5BfzNUvTLzC8cqjgKbCl&id=100063462196186&mibextid=Nif5oz

Hexes on Uranus 

In 2025 there will be as many post-Jerry Dead projects years as tGD had. I don't know why, but that feels strange to me.

With the revelation that Dead & Company are a corporation (as were Furthur) whose primary shareholder is John Mayer, have we seen the last of Dead & Co. ?
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Sadly, yes.
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The band’s excellent near-eight-year run reached new heights in 2023 as Dead & Co. morphed into an extraordinarily tight unit able to play the music of the Grateful Dead as well as most-any post 1995 incarnate.
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Their stadium and amphitheater tours greatest benefit was returning Deadhead Nation to the road, to allow us — veterans, newcomers, the curious and the young — to answer not just the lure of the road but the call of the wild.
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To feel the wind in our hair, the experience of driving toward something even if it’s the great unknown.
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Dead & Co.’s primary shareholder is Mayer, whose controlling interest tells us that the band may have been the brainchild of Bobby and Mayer but its principal owners are Mayer and Irving Azoff.
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It was Mayer who leaked the impending breakup of Dead & Co. to Rolling Stone a year ago and who was first to announce that this summer's tour would be Dead & Co.'s last.
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Azoff is the villain in all of this who’s more than capable of creating a situation in which the music of the Grateful Dead would be marketed and presented in a manner that would generate such wicked amounts of cash that Mickey, Billy and Bob would be willing to accept less cash than Mayer to make more money than any one of them could ever earn or need in one lifetime.
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Is there something intrinsically wrong with that ?
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Let’s put it this way — it’s not a case of right or wrong but a case of the bizzare.
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It’s bizarre to me that the Core Three were willing to split an approximate fifty percent stake in Dead & Co. three ways to become fabulously wealthy.
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Did Billy’s absence diminish the music or the tour ?
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Not at all.
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And let’s leave it at that.
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Jay Lane was more than up to the task and truly phenomenal.
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In a big-time way.
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No guts, no glory.
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With Oteil and Jay’s help, Mickey and the drum solo was the unlauded star of this tour. Hart added voices, recordings, an aerial laser light show in the shape of an eyeball and a Stealie (last night) and tape loops to the drum solo that achieved transcendence.
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Truth be told, there’s no doubt Dead & Co. all but had a patent on mishandling the numerous quagmires and moral conundrums thrown their way during the past eight years.
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One poor decision after another.
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But enough on that.
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Mayer and Weir created and nurtured a band that respectfully honored the music of the Grateful Dead. Since 2015, the group took a few back roads and some steps backward as well as a few easy, unnecessary shortcuts but ultimately provided Deadheads with life-time experiences and memories.
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Mayer may have been the primary breadwinner in this adventure, as odd as that may seem, and there may not have been a single breakout in 2023, but as the kids say — It’s all good.
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It was one heck of a run: daring, exciting, fun and riveting, and it brought the music of the Grateful Dead back to life on the major stages it earned and warrants.
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Mayer bought in hook, line and sinker, and that is what enabled Dead & Co. to attain greatness. The Connecticut native drank fully and deeply from the vat both figuratively and literally.
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That was the key.
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In doing so, Mayer didn’t learn how to play like Jerry or sound like Jerry.
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But, by the end, he sure could emote like Jerry, generating that thing Garcia was a master at — spreading love and happiness.
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— Scott
July 17, 2023
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So Mayer wasn't just a well paid hired gun, or even an equity owner with a share equal to everyone else in the band - he was actually (along with Irving Azoff) the principal 'owner' of Dead & Co.? Bobby, Billy and Mickey were essentially hired tour musicians as much as they were the ingredients that gave the whole enterprise the necessary legitimacy?

I'm not at all surprised this thing was formed as much as a business decision as opposed to primarily an artistic endeavor, and I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Azoff and Mayer were the principals or 'masterminds' behind it, but I kind of am surprised.

Not that I think it has any real effect on the music that was played for the past 8 years, but what's the source of this "revelation?" Is this shit true (as much as anything can be true) or just some PT tier rumor/story?

This makes Dead & Co. sound like The Monkees, the Sex Pistols, or any other of those manufactured bands created by managers in order to capitalize on a trend or just plain ole exist to generate cash. Not surprised and no judgement at this point, I'm sure all involved are happy to the point where they decided to participate, but it seems odd that Mayer/Azoff are the principals and the Core 3 are just the hired hands.