I grew up in Southern California in a Dead Head-adjacent family. My Uncle David, my dad’s little brother, was the real deal. He followed the Grateful Dead for years, recording bootleg tapes of every concert and creating a meticulously filed catalogue. A music enthusiast with an encyclopedic knowledge and a musician, himself, I always thought of him as “my cool Uncle David.” His long ponytail and tie-dyed concert t-shirt was the rock ‘n roll counterpoint to my dad’s more buttoned up business and family man.
The Grateful Dead was the soundtrack of my childhood, driving around Orange County with the whole family and on a memorable road trip north to the Bay Area. We loved “Bertha” and “Uncle John’s Band” and listened to the Workingman’s Dead (1970) album on repeat.
So when we heard about Dead & Company’s summer residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas (through August 10), my dad spearheaded a family trip. Vegas is a city that’s been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. My dad’s older brother, my Uncle Jerry, was a gambler who retired there. One of his sons is now a retired casino executive and my younger sister lived there for a time to help him open the Aria. Jerry was larger than life; smart, unabashed and wickedly funny. The only time I’ve ever won—and really had fun—gambling was with him.
Uncle David passed on New Year’s Eve 2022 and Jerry a few years before that. There is a giant void left in their place. This trip to Vegas to see the Dead felt like a memorial to these men and the influence their passions have had on on our family.
I had no idea what to expect (I barely knew that John Mayer was a member of this new iteration of the band), but based on what I did know about the Dead’s psychedelic, jam band qualities and the Sphere’s immersive, all-encompassing environs, I was hoping for a completely transcendental experience that would launch me into another dimension.
The show opened with “I Need a Miracle” and an image of a San Francisco streetscape to signify where it all started in 1965. Soon, the Dead’s signature lightning bolt bisected the screen, the homes melted into the stage and the image panned out as we left the earth behind. That new dimension I was hoping for, achieved immediately to ecstatic effect.
While this was my first Dead concert, my version of this transcendental experience has mostly been achieved through electronic dance music at nightclubs and music festivals, large and small, whether it’s been Swedish House Mafia, David Guetta, Tiësto, Armin Van Buren or Carl Cox. It dawned on me that the ecstatic feeling engendered in electronic music is of a kindred spirit to the jam band’s instrumental stylings and I happily surrendered to it in this immersive environment.
Acid bears marched in a tie-dye spiral around (original band member) Bob Weir, we tripped down a rainbow and went on a motorcycle ride with a skeleton across a neon landscape. Fuck yeah! All the while, Mayer and Weir played their hearts out in two sets, an hour and a half each, which included an incredible cover of “The Weight,” as well as some of my personal Dead favorites “Mama Tried,” “Playing in the Band,” “St. Stephen” and “Sugar Magnolia.” Original drummer Mickey Hart’s extended percussion solo in the second set was a completely otherworldly experience. Their set list changes every night, so it’s always a different show.
After all these years passively listening to the Dead, I feel like I finally understand the Dead Head lifestyle and their utter devotion to this band. And I’m prepared to officially say that this was the best concert of my life, supplanting Bob Dylan at the Beacon in New York circa 2018.
Checking in…
The other must on this trip was checking into the fabulous Fontainebleau, which opened last December. The original Miami Beach resort played an outsized role in my early years in Miami. It was sort of my entree to the city; I stayed at the hotel and partied at LIV before even moving there. It’s always meant a lot to me, from its storied Rat Pack history to the glamorous and beautifully restored MiMo architecture and my many wild late nights there in the 2010s.
The Vegas resort stands like a glimmering lapis stone in the desert, climbing 67 stories, with 3,600 rooms, dozens of restaurants, a tranquil spa, casino and, of course, LIV and its day club counterpart LIV Beach. They’ve done a fabulous job honoring the original resort’s heritage, design and spirit, all while embracing Vegas’s supersized glamour.
Highlights of the stay included a lavish meal at Miami’s own Komodo (wagyu skirt steak tacos, truffle honey salmon sashimi, miso Chilean sea bass and an outrageous banana pagoda cheesecake), LIV Beach with John Summit and LIV with Calvin Harris (somehow I ended up in the DJ booth, just like my first time at LIV in Miami Beach; poetry) all in the same day—a full day of partying I don’t think I’ve pulled off since my early WMC days, also at the Fontainebleau.
For more, check out my full review of Fontainebleau Las Vegas. Overall: highly recommend.
