From March to May of 2025 Dead & Company, the Grateful Dead spinoff band comprised of Jay Lane (drums), Oteil Burbridge (bass, vocals), Jeff Chimenti (keyboards, vocals), John Mayer (lead guitar, vocals), and Grateful Dead core members Mickey Hart (drums, vocals), and Bob Weir (rhythm guitar, vocals), completed their second Dead Forever residency at Sphere, the high-tech concert venue attached to The Venetian Resort in Las Vegas, NV. The band paired up its long-standing format of two-set concerts, with a completely different set list every night, augmented by Sphere visuals. 2025’s 18-show residency unfolded over six weekends of three-night runs spread out over nine weeks.

If you’re not yet familiar with the 18,200-capacity Sphere, its 160,000-foot LED screen, and its 167,000-speaker system that sets it apart from other venues, click here for an unofficial tour of the venue and how it all works. For those who don’t want to make the deep dive, the short answer is that for live music performances at the venue, each artist works closely with a company named Treatment, who develops elaborate visual presentations that play during each song of the artist’s show, creating an unusually immersive experience for the concertgoer.

I’M EIGHTEEN

When 2025’s Dead Forever residency was announced in December 2024, it contained a clarification that the 18 shows would comprise the entirety of the year’s residency. This was a change from 2024, when 24 shows were initially announced before six more were added later. What did remain consistent in 2025 was the strong split of opinion within the Dead & Company fanbase about Sphere ticket prices and the location of Las Vegas for a residency. In general, many Deadheads (especially those living east of the Mississippi River) remain accustomed to driving to shows, and even amongst Deadheads who fly, many just aren’t that into Las Vegas and its high cost, casinos, and overall glitziness.

Dead & Company tickets at Sphere still cost about twice as much as their shows did when the band was a touring act. Excluding the “dynamically priced” (a.k.a. upcharged) “Platinum” seats that most Deadheads refuse to buy, there were price increases for the 300 and 400 level seats in the centermost sections. Top-priced tickets remained at $395 all-in for most 100 and 200 level seats, with outer sections of the 100 and 200 levels and the General Admission (“GA”) floor area going for $295; the least expensive seats in the outer sections and the top of 400 level were $145, while $195 would get you the best seats in the 400 level or the “limited view” seats in the last 12 rows of the 100 level.

While we don’t have confirmed attendance numbers at press time, our nightly check-up found that on Saturdays Sphere was generally full, Fridays (and the sole Sunday show) were close to full, and Thursday shows were slightly less crowded. In general, the giveaway on how close to capacity a given show was could be determined by looking at the limited-view seats in the last dozen rows of the 100 level. If those seats weren’t filled, it was because they were unsold and/or there were enough open seats elsewhere in the venue for people to move there. But if those seats were completely filled, the show was sold out, and on Saturdays the ushers in the 100 and 200 level were actively checking tickets to enter sections and regularly clearing aisles during shows.

THE VISUALS

Dead & Company didn’t mess with a great thing when it came to their “signature” visual packages established during their initial 2024 Dead Forever residency. Each night these visuals appeared in six unchanging locations throughout the show—the first two and final two songs each night, and the “Drums” and “Space and a ballad” slots midway through the second set.

Each show’s first song took place as the “framework” visual that appeared on the screen as concertgoers entered the venue remained in sight, and at its conclusion the illusion is revealed as large “steel” bay doors, which slide open to place the viewer in front of the Grateful Dead’s former house at 710 Ashbury Street in San Francisco. During the second song, the signature “liftoff” visual occurs, where the viewer is lifted up from the earth and shot into space over the duration of six minutes, complete with an International Space Station fly-by just before the earth drops out of view completely. It’s still the most stunning visual for any act that’s played Sphere so far.

Midway through the second set a “stained glass” window appears and “breaks” at the beginning of the “Drums” segment each night before a series of starry backgrounds, drumming skeletons, and floating percussion instruments. At its conclusion, the stage goes dark except for a black and white video screen of the band members and soft blue lighting onstage. This visual lasts for each’s show’s abbreviated “Space” section, which was generally more of an extended introduction to the quieter “ballad” song that followed.

During the second-to-last song of each show, the earth drifts back into view, and over the span of six minutes the viewer returns to the very same location at 710 Ashbury in San Francisco for a landing, but this time in the 1960s when the band was actually living there. At the conclusion of the song, a voiceover plays while the view pans to a view of silhouetted band members playing music behind a drawn curtain in an upstairs bedroom before cutting to the Dead Forever residency logo. From there, an excellent photo montage of Grateful Dead band members scrolls upward during each night’s final song—it’s essentially an encore without the band actually having to leave the stage and return.

And while many of the best visuals from the 2024 residency were retained, Mayer made an Instagram post post prior to the first 2025 weekend to let people know there’d be over 20 new visuals during the 2025 residency. They’d include but not be limited to a sheet of 100 hits of Dancing Bear LSD drifting into view, coming to life and expanding before morphing into pixilated views of the band members playing live, the animated characters on the Grateful Dead’s From The Mars Hotel LP getting recreated in human form and holding poses for long periods of time in between bouts of dancing, a stack of cathode ray tube-era TVs broadcasting a variety of psychedelic images, a montage of dancing people and animals that included Wednesday Addams from The Addams Family TV show, the baby from the Ally McBeal TV show, cartoon characters Scooby Doo and Shaggy, Tom & Jerry, Mickey Mouse, internet-viral clips of dancing toddlers, cats and dogs, an owl that just kind of stared at everyone, and a huge neon display of Dead & Company and GD-related images that extended up to the ceiling.

There were also several new visuals containing clear nods to and inspiration from the 1980s, playing heavily to a formative decade for many ticketholders: a neon green “Vector” graphics piece that resembled the 1980 coin-operated video game Battle Zone, an elaborate “system failure” prank involving test screens, blue screens, and system failure notices before an appearance by a “thinking” computer that was heavily inspired by the WOPR (“Whopper”) computer from the 1983 film War Games, and a red framework that soon morphed into a montage of spines of cassette tape J-cards of Grateful Dead bootlegs, with the tape covers being very much the kind people bought in parking lots of Dead shows or created themselves on an early home computer.

The best of the new ones though, was the “circle of life” visual stretching from stage to ceiling and chronicling the birth of skeleton deadheads and their journey through childhood, school, adulthood, work, marriage, parenthood, grandparenthood, retirement, and death, at which point the skeleton being placed into a coffin and returned back to the bottom of the screen to be reborn. There was so much going on in this one that we really did need more than one viewing to catch it all, and we probably still missed something.

There were also some subtle updates to existing visuals as well. There’s no way we saw them all, but some of our favorites were: the liftoff containing a blimp with a “60 Years” banner floating above the San Francisco Bay (in retrospect, a nice tease for the August 2025 GD60 shows in Golden Gate Park, announced the week after the residency ended), Uncle Sam’s motorcycle ride now containing a ride to the Las Vegas Strip, and in a wonderfully subtle touch, the paint-by-numbers visual now featuring the late Jerry Garcia lying on top of a cloud at the very top of the visual, instead of his customary spot on the front porch of the riverside cabin at the bottom.

PHIL LESH (1940-2024)

Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh passed away at the age of 84 in October 2024. And while he was the only surviving “core four” member not to play in Dead & Company, he’d remain active with his Phil Lesh & Friends (with its rotating cast of Friends) for as long as he was able, playing his final show in July 2024. The first two weekends of the 2025 Dead Forever residency featured several unannounced tributes to him that were so subtle that a newcomer might have missed them but for the big reactions from the crowd.

The opening song on opening night, March 20th, was Dead & Company’s debut version of Spencer Davis’ “Gimme Some Lovin’”, a staple in Grateful Dead shows from 1984 to 1990. Sung by Lesh and the late keyboardist Brent Mydland as a duet, it was a signature song for each of them. At the show’s conclusion, when the shot pans into the upstairs window of 710 Ashbury where silhouettes of band members were playing, Lesh was now in the front and featured more prominently. And instead of the “newscaster” voiceover between the landing and encore, the crowd heard Lesh’s voice, taken from a 2010 TV interview with Tucker Carlson:

The way that we thought of our music was as kind of a communion ritual, where we commune with each other and form what we thought of as a group mind. And that brings the music out, and when we can transmit that to the audience, they send us energy back. And so that was the main reason that we played music, was to get that communion going and that sense of community. What we were doing was communion in every sense of the word, which means “to bind together.” We were trying to create a community of spirit with the music.

During the second night of the opening weekend, the post-landing audio reverted to the traditional “newscast” voiceover, but after “Morning Dew” on the third night, the Lesh quote aired again, just before Mayer counted in and sung the first Dead & Company version of “Box of Rain” (Lesh’s signature song) since 2019. And during the “landing” on March 27th, the first night of weekend two, the band debuted “Broken Arrow”, a Robbie Robertson song regularly sang with the Grateful Dead in the band’s final years from 1993 to 1995, just before a third use of the Lesh quote. Then on May 17th, at the residency’s final show, the Lesh quote replaced the “radio voiceover” for a fourth and final time.

During weekend four (April 17th–19th) and the final night of weekend six (May 17th), Burbridge played a replica version of Lesh’s Osiris Mission Control bass that had been loaned to him by Leo Elliott of Scarlet Fire Guitars. The stage-played bass is now being auctioned off by the Grateful Guitars Foundation, with a closing date of August 15th, 2025. Go here to bid.

Lastly, throughout the residency the large “disco donut” visual that was generally used as a vehicle for broadcasting old footage of Jerry Garcia in 2024 now included footage of both Garcia and Lesh, each sporting their signature entranced stares while they played onstage.

HERB GREENE (1942-2025) 

Legendary photographer Herb Greene passed away on March 3rd at the age of 82, but the news of his passing was not widely shared until three weeks later, the day before Dead & Company’s second weekend at Sphere. Greene was there with his camera on the San Francisco psychedelic music scene pretty much from the beginning, and he was one of the great chroniclers of the era in general and of the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane in particular.

MYSTERY BOXES AND INSPIRATIONS

On March 11, one week before the 2025 residency’s first show, John Mayer posted on social media to show the new setups for his live amps, which actually have to be set up offstage in large wooden crates on the loading dock to isolate the sound. (Yes, the onstage amps the audience sees are decorative, non-functioning versions of the ones he’s actually using.) This year Mayer decided to have some fun with the crates’ interiors and decorate them as a Deadhead might—one as an upscale living room and one as more of a dorm room, with tapestries, black lights and lava lamps.

Mayer also gave a bit more insight into his motivation and behind-the-scenes preparation for Dead & Company shows when he took over Sirius XM‘s Grateful Dead channel as its guest DJ on April 7th, during a month when the channel was available for free. Particular highlights came from him sharing nine of his favorite Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Band live songs and providing some background on when and where he first heard them. In one case, there was a bit of foreshadowing, as Dead & Company would debut “The Harder They Come” on April 18th during weekend three. Now that the free month has come and gone, the five-hour show is available here if you’re a SiriusXM subscriber.

SHAKEDOWN MOVES BACK OUTDOORS

During the 2024 Dead Forever residency, the ever-popular “Shakedown Street” vending area—which was a vendor-initiated, not for profit project—moved indoors to a large room at the nearby Tuscany Suites & Casino due to the strict policy banning unlicensed vending in and around the Las Vegas Strip. Another factor was that the 2024 residency took place during a particularly hot spell when outside temperatures were routinely hitting 110 and higher, posing health and comfort concerns for vendors, shoppers, and casino employees alike. Since the 2025 residency took place from mid-March to mid-May, vendors were able to set up shop outside in Tuscany’s rear parking lot. And on the afternoon of the residency’s opening day on March 20th, the weather was cloudy and the temperature was a very comfortable 66 degrees, almost as if it was the mid-1980s Grateful Dead spring tour date at Virginia’s Hampton Coliseum, and throughout the residency April daytime temperatures generally remained in the 70s and 80s.

SiriusXM’s popular Tales From The Golden Road show also returned to Las Vegas and set up shop at an indoor bar residency at Tuscany on weekend five (May 9th–11th), with co-hosts Gary Lambert and David Gans able to broadcast together instead of their usual respective locations in New York and the Bay Area.

And while last year’s array of vendors was significant, this year it was bigger, and probably equal to the large number of professional vendors doing business on Dead & Company’s final tours—a walk through the Shakedown aisles yielded a count of over 100 stalls. This time, the casino did have folks selling food and drinks onsite, but there was still no presence of nitrous oxide vending anywhere near Tuscany or Venetian. We didn’t actually see any of that until we stopped at a gas station about a mile from Sphere after the opening night’s show and spotted a small operation near its parking lot along with the telltale balloons and sprawled-out people (two for twenty, no deals!).

Because Dead & Company alternated weekends with the Eagles during this run, last year’s Dead Forever Experience did not return, so outside the official merchandise area, the other Dead-related retail action remained at Animazing Gallery at the Palazzo shops at the Venetian, where Grateful Dead and Dead & Company photographer Jay Blakesberg made appearances, as did his fellow photographers Chloe Weir and Josh Hitchens.

Inside Sphere, one established Dead & Company trend continued. Along with the rotating batches of t-shirts and hoodies, the official limited edition posters for each night’s show were quickly snapped up, with potential buyers able to see the poster on the band’s Instagram page a few hours before showtime each day. Demand remained high—a mid-morning visit to the official merch area in The Shops at Venetian on Friday of weekend one revealed long lines of fans attempting to buy some of the allotment of that day’s limited-edition posters. It’s still an area where demand exceeds supply.

MORE DRUMMING, MORE HAPTICS

Back in the spring of 1978, the Grateful Dead cemented the concept that each of their shows’ second sets would contain a “Drums” section, where Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann were given time and space to create drum duets on their kits and the large array of percussion instruments that travelled with them. In 2025, the “Drums” segment still remains a tradition, and while that makes it the most predictable thing at each Dead & Company show, it also remains the most wildly improvisational part of the show.

As has been the case throughout nearly the entire Dead & Company era, the “Rhythm Devils” (a.k.a. the folks who actually play the “Drums” segment) is a trio consisting of Hart, Burbridge and Lane at first, until the others leave Hart to transition to the show’s low-drone “Space” segment on “The Beam,” a long metal beam with 13 bass piano strings strung across it and tuned to create a low D monochord. Also, for the second straight year, people seated in most of the seats on the 200 through the 400 levels during the “Drums” and Beam segments experienced vibrational augmentation from the haptics installed in the seats, which were activated in synchronization with the music.

RENÉE FLEMING

Dead & Company With Renée Fleming – “Drums” > “Space” – 4/18/2025

[Video: Steven Leitman]

Dead & Company remained quiet on the guest artist front until weekend three, but it was a big one. On April 18th, the middle night of weekend three, the National Medal of Arts and Kennedy Center Honors recipient opera soprano Renée Fleming, clad in a shimmering gown, joined Hart on the drum riser for the “Beam” section of “Drums” to add otherworldly vocal phrases and accents in a duet that carried over into the beginning of the ensuing “Space” segment. On the day of the show, Fleming and Hart both took to social media to announce her appearance in advance, which had only happened once before in Dead & Company’s history when Branford Marsalis’ full-set appearance at the Lock’n Festival in 2018 was announced along with the shows. Fleming has actually been collaborating with Hart and the late Zakir Hussain for decades, and it showed. There was genuine chemistry between the two, and Hart even escorted her to the top of the stage stairs before resuming his place on stage for the remainder of “Space”.

Fleming was the sole musician to appear onstage with the band during the 2025 Dead Forever residency.

STEPPING OUT

During Dead & Company’s residency, four of its members made unannounced musical appearances elsewhere.

First, on April 13th during Weekend One of the Coachella Music Festival in Indio, CA, John Mayer joined artist/producer Zedd for two songs of his headline show, performing Zedd’s “Automatic Yes” and Mayer’s “New Light”.

Meanwhile, back in New York on April 15th and 16th, Oteil Burbridge returned to Madison Square Garden as a member of The Brothers, the post-Allman Brothers band comprised of former members Jaimoe, Warren Haynes, Derek Trucks, Burbridge, and Marc Quiñones, plus Joe Russo, Reese Wynans, Isaac Eady, and special guest Chuck Leavell, who gathered to celebrate the legacy of one of rock ‘n’ roll’s most enduring acts for the first time since 2020.

Bob Weir’s star turn came next when he made an appearance at rocker Sammy Hagar’s Best Of All Worlds residency on Las Vegas Boulevard at Park MGM on May 7th, borrowing Hagar’s signature red Gibson Explorer with the Ferrari guitar strap to jam on the Montrose classic “Bad Motor Scooter”.

Last but not least, Jay Lane made an appearance at the Shakedown Street vending area at Tuscany Casino on Saturday, May 17th, on the afternoon before the residency’s final show. Amazingly, he joined a large drum circle in the far corner of the lot, making for an instantly legendary moment in Dead lot lore. Good work, fella!

Jay Lane Joins Shakedown Street Drum Circle – 5/17/2025

[Video: Information Overlord]

MAYBE SOMEDAY YOUR NAME WILL BE IN LIGHTS

For the second straight year, after the final encore of the residency’s closing night, instead of the large “steel doors” drifting shut with a deep clang, the screen maintained its starry setting. When the band left the stage, the credits for the entire Dead Forever production appeared, and those who stayed to read them saw the names of almost 170 people. Once again, the credits were displayed after the final show, and many of the same folks’ names were up there, but this time there was a group photo with the band members and around 60 other people heavily involved in the residency’s production.

Another change from last year’s credits is that all of the dates from 2024’s residency and 2025’s residency were displayed along the top column of the screen. And while further Dead & Company Sphere dates have not been announced, the current layout of the screen allows for the addition of several more years of residency dates without a redesign. We’re choosing to interpret that as a good sign.

SONG STATS AND FUN FACTS

Excluding the improvisational “Drums” and “Space” segments in each second set, Dead & Company played 104 different songs over the duration of 2025’s 18-show residency, with ticket buyers assured that no song will ever be repeated during any three-day run.

From a bird’s eye perspective, the band stuck to their now-established practice of playing their biggest, best, and most popular songs the most often. This year, 18 different songs were played on all six weekends, and they’re the ones that even the most frequent showgoers are unlikely to complain about hearing again: “Scarlet Begonias”, “Fire on the Mountain”, “Althea”, Terrapin Station”, “St. Stephen”, “Shakedown Street”, “China Cat Sunflower”, “I Know You Rider”, “Sugaree”, “Casey Jones”, “Help on the Way”, “Slipknot!”, “Franklin’s Tower”, “Bertha”, “Estimated Prophet”, “Eyes of the World”, “Cold Rain and Snow”, and “Brown-Eyed Women”.

Just below those, “Jack Straw”, “Deal”, “Morning Dew”, and “Playing in the Band” were each played on five of the six weekends, while another eight songs were played on four weekends: “Feel Like A Stranger”, “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo”, “Uncle John’s Band”, “Sugar Magnolia”, “Cumberland Blues”, “Truckin’”, “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”, and “Brokedown Palace”.

12 different songs opened the first set during the “framework” visual. Sam Cooke’s “Good Times” got the nod three times, “Alabama Getaway”, “Man Smart, Woman Smarter”, and “Feel Like A Stranger” each started a show twice, and nine other songs appeared once each.

Eight different songs were played during the all-important “liftoff” visual, with “Shakedown Street” providing the soundtrack four times, “Truckin’” and “Playing in the Band” each making three appearances, “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo”, “Franklin’s Tower”, and “Help On The Way”, each making two, and “Uncle John’s Band” and “Eyes of the World” once each.

Nine different songs closed the first set, with “Deal” making four appearances there, “Sugaree” and “Casey Jones” making three each, “Sugar Magnolia” and “Bertha” twice each, along with “Don’t Ease Me In”, “St. Stephen”, “Terrapin Station”, and “One More Saturday Night” each closing the set once.

The most variation in the residency’s song choices came at the top of the second set. “China Cat Sunflower” opened a second set twice, and 17 other songs each started the second set once.

Ten different songs led into the second-set “Drums” segment, with “Terrapin Station” leading the way with four appearances here, “St. Stephen” making three, “He’s Gone”, “Row Jimmy”, and “Eyes of the World” making two each, and five other songs leading to “Drums” once each.

Nine different songs appeared in the “ballad” slot that emerged from each night’s “Space” segment, and the songs were well-chosen and well-distributed. Weir’s now-signature take on “The Days Between” tied with the reflective “Standing on the Moon” with three appearances each, “Wharf Rat”, “Stella Blue”, “Dear Prudence”, “Death Don’t Have No Mercy”, and “Looks Like Rain” each turned up twice, and “Black Peter” and “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” got one airing each.

Eight different songs were played during the crucial “landing” visual that returned concertgoers to earth, and like last year, a smaller group of songs got most of the action because of their structure and the ability to time the landing with the song’s conclusion reasonably accurately. Over the space of 18 shows, “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door”, “Morning Dew”, and “Brokedown Palace” each got to be the landing soundtrack four times, “Throwing Stones” appeared there twice, and “Broken Arrow”, “Estimated Prophet”, “Black Muddy River”, and “Uncle John’s Band” once each.

After the landing and the voiceover before the Dead Forever logo slammed onto Sphere’s screen, ten different songs appeared in the show-closer slot. “Casey Jones”, “Not Fade Away”, and “Sugar Magnolia” or its “Sunshine Daydream” coda led the way with three plays each, “One More Saturday Night” and “Ripple” each got two, and five different songs made single appearances.

Dead & Company debuted six songs during the 2025 residency. During the opening two weekends, which were essentially a tribute to Phil Lesh, the band debuted Spencer Davis’ “Gimme Some Lovin’” and Robbie Robertson’s “Broken Arrow”, two songs Lesh sang during his years with the Grateful Dead. The band dipped into the Jerry Garcia Band catalog for three other new tunes, dusting off the JGB versions of Eric Clapton’s “Lay Down Sally,” (sung by Mayer) Jimmy Cliff‘s “The Harder They Come” (sung by Burbridge) and Bob Dylan’s “Tangled Up In Blue” (sung by Weir). And on the final weekend, the band kicked off Friday’s second set with The Crickets’ “I Fought The Law”, a tune the Grateful Dead debuted in 1993 that wore thin for many Deadheads pretty quickly after its novelty wore off.

“Help on the Way” and “Slipknot!” were played together on all six weekends of the residency, but the band only transitioned into the traditional third song in the suite, “Franklin’s Tower”, on three occasions. The remaining three versions transitioning into “Cumberland Blues”, “He’s Gone”, and most surprisingly, “Row Jimmy”. However, the most memorable thing about the suite during the 2025 residency was the band’s realization that “Help on the Way” was an ideal song to accompany the liftoff visual, which happened on weekends five and six. It turns out that the first tricky passage leading to the main improvisational jam of “Slipknot!” lined up very closely with the earth dropping out of view after the ISS made its nightly cameo, and if Dead & Company play additional Sphere residencies in 2026 and beyond, you can bet on seeing this again.

The longtime pairing of “China Cat Sunflower” and “I Know You Rider” was played together on five of the six weekends, but on the opening night of weekend four, on April 24th, the pairing was split. In the first set, “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo” segued into “I Know You Rider” (just like the Grateful Dead did on one memorable occasion at Brendan Byrne Arena on November 10th, 1985). “China Cat” then kicked off the second set and transitioned into the sole “Loser” of the residency.

Another longtime pairing and Deadhead favorite, “Scarlet Begonias” and “Fire on the Mountain”, was also played together on five of the six weekends, including one surprising and welcome first-set appearance on April 26th. However, on weekend two, the songs were split up, with “Scarlet” leading into “Franklin’s Tower” on March 27th and “Fire on the Mountain” following “Jack Straw” on March 28th.

“Playing in the Band” aired five times during the residency, and all five versions were unbroken “full” versions containing the reprise, as the Grateful Dead initially played it from 1971 through 1974.

“One More Saturday Night” has long been a Saturday-show staple, but during the 2025 residency its deployment was limited to just three plays over six Saturdays, twice in its customary encore spot on weekends two and three and once as the first set closer on weekend four.

On the lower end of the song statistics, some of the band’s biggest jamming vehicles didn’t turn up much or even at all. “Dark Star” was only played twice on weekends two and six, and “The Other One” was only played once, during weekend four. “U.S. Blues” made its only appearance during weekend one, remaining on the shelf for the remainder of the residency. Its customary Sphere placement late in the second set was generally filled by “Brown-Eyed Women” and “Cold Rain and Snow” instead.

Four notable omissions during the 2025 Dead Forever residency were “Bird Song”, “Viola Lee Blues”, “China Doll”, and “Ship of Fools”.

32 songs were only played once during the 18-show residency, and each of those occurrences is noted in our recaps of each weekend below.

HIGHLIGHTS AND AUDIENCE RECORDINGS FROM EVERY SHOW

Thanks to the folks taking the time and effort to continue the longstanding practice of making unofficial recordings of Dead & Company shows for free distribution, below you’ll find audio from all 18 shows of 2025’s Dead Forever residency along with our highlights from each weekend. Enjoy.

WEEKEND ONE: MARCH 20th–22nd

Dead & Company’s debut and sole residency version of the Spencer Davis classic “Gimme Some Lovin” launched opening night of 2025’s Dead Forever residency, an immediate tribute to Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh, who passed away in October and who’d sung the song with the Grateful Dead for years. “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo” was the first liftoff song of the residency for the second straight year, and the set’s standout songs were “New Speedway Boogie” and “Brown-Eyed Women”. The second set launched with “Feel Like A Stranger” before “Scarlet Begonias” > “Fire on the Mountain” and the show’s highlight, “Terrapin Station”. Later, “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” was the soundtrack for the landing, and a touching audio quote from Lesh preceded show closer “Touch of Grey”.

Dead & Company – Sphere – Las Vegas, NV – 3/20/2025

Friday’s show was the strongest of the weekend, with first-set highlights including “Cumberland Blues”, the Dead & Company debut of “Lay Down Sally”,  Eric Clapton’s 1977 hit that made regular appearances in Jerry Garcia Band shows, and the “Sugaree” set closer. The second set had a four-song pre-“Drums” segment that lasted 63 minutes, and save for the “Casey Jones” encore, the entire setlist looked like it could have been lifted from the Grateful Dead’s 1983 fall tour: “Uncle John’s Band”, “Estimated Prophet” > “Eyes of the World” > “St. Stephen” > “Drums” > “Space” > “Wharf Rat” > “U.S. Blues” > “Throwing Stones”.  Somewhat surprisingly, this was the residency’s sole version of 2024 Sphere regular “U.S. Blues”.

Dead & Company – Sphere – Las Vegas, NV – 3/21/2025

Saturday’s show commenced with the sole “Minglewood Blues” of the residency to set up “Franklin’s Tower” in the liftoff spot. Focused versions of “Jack Straw” and the residency’s sole “Big Railroad Blues” followed before “Cassidy” and “Deal” each stretched out nicely to close the set. The second set’s pre-“Drums” highlights came from “China Cat Sunflower” and a version of “Slipknot!” that featured a rare (but understandable) misfire during the song’s tricky closing. However, the night’s three biggest highlights came from the show’s final three songs: a full version of “Playing in the Band” before a “Morning Dew” that nailed the landing, followed by another touching tribute to Lesh: the first Dead & Company version of “Box of Rain” since 2019 and the sole version of the residency.

Dead & Company – Sphere – Las Vegas, NV – 3/22/2025

WEEKEND TWO: MARCH 27th–29th

After a brisk “Alabama Getaway” to start weekend two on Thursday the 27th, “Truckin’” was the soundtrack to the show’s liftoff, and it would turn out to be a set comprised solely of Grateful Dead originals: “The Music Never Stopped”, “Cumberland Blues”, the residency’s sole version of “Loose Lucy”, and “Sugaree” in its favored first set-closing position. Mayer chose the late Ron “Pigpen” McKernan’s “Mr. Charlie” as the second set opener, in its sole residency appearance, before a 50-minute segment that sealed the night as one of the residency’s best: the surprise pairing of “Scarlet Begonias” with “Franklin’s Tower” before “St. Stephen” begat the residency’s sole version of “The Eleven”. There’d be more highlights at the end—after the residency’s sole version of Bob Dylan’s “All Along The Watchtower” came Dead & Company’s debut and sole residency performance of Robbie Robertson’s “Broken Arrow” during the landing. This was a song that Phil Lesh frequently sang with the Grateful Dead from 1993 to 1995, so there was no mistaking its inclusion as anything other than a tribute to him, and the “Sugar Magnolia” encore capped off one of Dead & Company’s strongest Sphere shows.

Dead & Company – Sphere – Las Vegas, NV – 3/27/2025

Friday’s show used “Playing in the Band” for the liftoff, with other first-set highlights coming from a relaxed “Dancing in the Streets” and an upbeat “Casey Jones”. The second set would ultimately stand out via the band’s decision to mix up the setlist. After an “Althea” opener, the band placed Lesh’s “Passenger” inside of the two halves of “Dark Star” before “Jack Straw” and a standalone version of “Fire on the Mountain”. Later, the sole “Black Peter” of the residency preceded an energy-boosting “Brown-Eyed Women” before “Estimated Prophet” got its first chance in the landing slot, with its slinky outro jam making for a distinctive return to California.

Dead & Company – Sphere – Las Vegas, NV – 3/28/2025

Saturday’s show went heavy on Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter-penned classics (“Eyes of the World”, “Deal”, “Terrapin Station”, and “Bertha”) in the first set, along with the residency’s sole version of The Band’s “The Weight”. “Hell In A Bucket” kicked off the second set before an excellent version of “China Cat Sunflower”, and two songs later the “Help on the Way” > “Slipknot!” pairing dropped into “Row Jimmy” for the first time, but the experiment was a bit of a momentum-killer. The residency’s sole version of Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” emerged from “Space” and led to another setlist shakeup in the form of a late-show appearance of “Shakedown Street”. Thursday was the strongest show overall and one of the residency’s best, but Friday and Saturday’s setlist shakeups increased the energy onstage each night.

Dead & Company – Sphere – Las Vegas, NV – 3/29/2025

WEEKEND THREE: APRIL 17th–19th

After taking two weekends off while the Eagles returned to town and did their thing at Sphere, Dead & Company returned for an Easter Weekend trio of shows. Thursday’s first set not only contained a fairly major surprise, but the entire setlist resembled a second set: “Feel Like A Stranger” opened before “Uncle John’s Band” made its liftoff debut while containing the residency’s sole version of “Supplication”, a Kingfish song that hadn’t appeared in a Dead & Company show since 2021. The set surged onwards with the “Help on the Way” > “Slipknot!” > “Franklin’s Tower” trio before “Sugar Magnolia” (minus its coda) wrapped the set. The second set started with ‘Greatest Story Ever Told” and “Bertha”, flipping the customary running order of these two early ’70s Grateful Dead classics, before “China Cat Sunflower” > “I Know You Rider” and “Terrapin Station”. Later, Traffic’s “Dear Mr. Fantasy” and the coda of The Beatles’ “Hey Jude” preceded a “Morning Dew” landing and an encore of “Sunshine Daydream”, the traditional coda to “Sugar Magnolia” that had been held back earlier in the show.

Dead & Company – Sphere – Las Vegas, NV – 4/17/2025

Friday’s first set featured “Althea” just three songs in before the Dead & Company debut of Jimmy Cliff’s “The Harder They Come”, played in the arrangement of Jerry Garcia Band. The second set started with “Cold Rain and Snow”, only the second time in ten years the band had played this song here. After “Estimated Prophet” > “Eyes of the World”, the slower “Row Jimmy” led into “Drums”, which contained the highlight of the night when renowned opera vocalist Renée Fleming joined Hart to add some stunning vocal improvisation as Hart strummed The Beam. The transfixing improvisation continued into the ensuing “Space” segment, before the onstage energy flowed into one of those versions of “The Days Between” that Weir just absolutely nailed. Later, the “Ripple” encore gently preceded the crowd’s return back to the casinos or their cars.

Dead & Company – Sphere – Las Vegas, NV – 4/18/2025

Saturday’s opening set started with the classic “Dancing In The Streets” before the “Truckin’” liftoff segued straight into Eric Clapton’s “Lay Down Sally”, followed “Tennessee Jed”, “Jack Straw”, and “Casey Jones”. The second set kicked off with “Scarlet Begonias” > “Fire on the Mountain”, and a slower “He’s Gone” leading to a lengthy, involved “St. Stephen”. Following the short “Space” segment, “Dear Prudence” led to two of the show’s highlights, “Brown-Eyed Women” and a version of “Hell In A Bucket” that was as good as this rocker gets before the soothing “Brokedown Palace” landing and expected “One More Saturday Night” encore.

Dead & Company – Sphere – Las Vegas, NV – 4/19/2025

WEEKEND FOUR: APRIL 24th–26th

The sole “I Need A Miracle” of the 2025 residency started Thursday night’s show and led to “Franklin’s Tower” as the liftoff song. “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo” took a surprising turn into “I Know You Rider”, which was separated from “China Cat Sunflower” for the first time since 2018, but the latter opened the second set and transitioned, again somewhat surprisingly, into “Loser”. The highlight of the night came next—a 39-minute, three-song segment consisting of “Truckin’”, the residency’s sole version of “The Other One”, and a “St. Stephen” containing a clear reference to The Beatles’ “Day Tripper”. Later in the show, the Reverend Gary Davis’ somber “Death Don’t Have No Mercy” made its first appearance of the residency in the ballad slot, and two songs later, “Black Muddy River” made its sole 2025 residency appearance during the landing before “Sugar Magnolia” closed out the night.

Dead & Company – Sphere – Las Vegas, NV – 4/24/2025

Friday night’s show could be summed up as, “Give ‘em the hits first and then surprise ‘em for an hour.” Sam Cooke’s “Good Times” started the first frame before the second “Playing in the Band” liftoff of the residency, and the rest of the set was comprised of five stone-cold classics: “Help on the Way” > “Slipknot!” > “Cumberland Blues”, “Jack Straw”, and “Deal”. On paper, the second set’s sequence had the feel of a 1979 Grateful Dead show, during keyboardist Brent Mydland’s first year with the band: a jumble of six songs, most of which are standalone but somehow cohere as a whole, followed by a slow tune after “Drums” and a rocking conclusion. So, how did that play out in 2025? “Sugaree” opened the second set before the residency’s sole versions of “Lost Sailor” and “Saint of Circumstance”, and then three straight setlist swerves: “They Love Each Other” and Wilson Pickett’s “Midnight Hour”, followed by “Morning Dew”, usually a second-set closer/landing song making a rare pre-“Drums” appearance. Following the “Drums” and “Space” segments, “Standing on the Moon” was the evening’s Garcia/Hunter ballad. Mayer deployed his signature song “Althea” before “Uncle John’s Band” got its first opportunity in the landing slot, leading to the “Casey Jones” encore.

Dead & Company – Sphere – Las Vegas, NV – 4/25/2025

Saturday’s show started with a nice surprise in the form of Dead & Company’s debut of Bob Dylan’s “Tangled Up In Blue”, with the band opting for a version that hewed closely to how it was played by Jerry Garcia Band. From there, the band piled on the heavy-hitters for the remainder of the first sent with a “Shakedown Street” liftoff and a 22-minute version of “Scarlet Begonias” > “Fire On The Mountain”, before the residency’s sole version of “The Wheel” preceded “One More Saturday Night”, moving up from its usual encore position. The second set started with the residency’s only version of “Here Comes Sunshine” before “Estimated Prophet”, Eyes of the World”, and “Terrapin Station”. Following “Space”, Weir called for the first “Looks Like Rain” of the residency in the ballad slot, and after Mayer countered with an energetic “Cold Rain and Snow”, many were hoping for a “Box of Rain” landing to complete a trio of rain-themed titles, but instead it was Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”.

Dead & Company – Sphere – Las Vegas, NV – 4/26/2025

WEEKEND FIVE: MAY 9th–11th

After one weekend off when the Eagles came back to town for two Sphere shows, Dead & Company returned to play the single Friday-to-Sunday run of the 2025 residency, with the other five being Thursday-to-Saturday. Mayer was raring to go from his first chords, to the point where he was so happy to be back onstage and so eager to play that he ripped into the mid-song solo of “Bertha” after just one verse. Later, “Me And My Uncle” and “Ramble On Rose” each made their sole residency appearance before “Deal” both highlighted and closed the first set. The second set’s pre-“Drums” segment ran for a generous hour, kicking off with the residency’s sole version of “Liberty” before “Scarlet Begonias” > “Fire on the Mountain”, “Cumberland Blues”, and an oddly placed “They Love Each Other”. An unexpected “Playing in the Band” extended the pre-“Drums” segment by another 15 minutes, the somber “Death Don’t Have Mo Mercy” was the late-show highlight, and “Throwing Stones” got one of its two opportunities to serve as the landing song. The setlist felt like a patchwork of Grateful Dead eras while the show unfolded, and a post-show look at the sources revealed this to be true: the show’s 16 songs originally appeared on 13 different Grateful Dead or band member solo albums.

Dead & Company – Sphere – Las Vegas, NV – 5/9/2025

Maybe it was the pre-show visit from several members of the National Football League’s San Francisco 49ers that fired the band up, but Saturday’s show was one of the strongest of the 2025 residency and one of the best Dead & Company Sphere shows in general. It was one of those rare nights where a little bit of extra magic permeated the proceedings all evening. The first set was filled with “second set” songs: After a “Man Smart, Woman Smarter” opener, “Help on the Way” made its first appearance in the liftoff slot, with the International Space Station fly-by immaculately timed with the intricate passage leading to “Slipknot!” and “Franklin’s Tower”. The set’s highlight came from a purposeful, driven rendition of “Let It Grow”, making its sole residency appearance before the set wrapped with a cover of The Band’s “The Weight” and two thirds of “Sugar Magnolia”.  When the band returned for the second set and cleverly picked up where they’d left off with the “Sunshine Daydream” coda of “Sugar Magnolia”, it was clear that the night was going to be a special one. A wah-heavy “Greatest Story Ever Told” came next before “China Cat Sunflower” > “I Know You Rider” and an on-point “Terrapin Station”. Following “Space”, Weir steered the band into an all-time rendition of “The Days Between” that lasted for over 19 minutes, with Mayer’s closing solo featuring Carlos Santana-style sustained wails that provided the night’s stunning peak. Dialed-in renditions of “Althea” and “Morning Dew” maintained the energy to close the set, before the “Not Fade Away” encore appeared in place of the expected “One More Saturday Night”. While the night contained the occasional miscues that happen when music is improvised, on this night they were generally happening because someone was really going for something. This was the sort of night that Deadheads hope the band delivers when they take a first-timer to a show.

Dead & Company – Sphere – Las Vegas, NV – 5/10/2025

The third and final show of weekend five was the sole Sunday show of the run, and it opened with the somewhat expected but welcome “Samson & Delilah”. While this song was played at practically every other Grateful Dead show between 1976 and 1978, it’s now a Sunday-only song and therefore this was its lone 2025 residency appearance. After “Truckin’” followed as the liftoff song, first-set highlights came from the residency’s sole version of Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried”, aired in honor of Mother’s Day, before the second and final “Cassidy” of the residency and “St. Stephen” in an unusual set-closer position. The front half of the second set read as if it were a Grateful Dead show from 1983:  “Shakedown Street”, the only “West L.A. Fadeaway” of the residency, “Sugaree”, and “Estimated Prophet” > “Eyes of the World”. “Cold Rain and Snow” made another late-show appearance before the “Brokedown Palace” landing, which led to the residency’s single rendition of Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” as the encore.

Dead & Company – Sphere – Las Vegas, NV – 5/11/2025

WEEKEND SIX: MAY 15th–17th

Thursday’s show eased everyone into things with a version of Sam Cooke’s “Good Times” with a couple amusing lyrical flubs before a “Shakedown Street” liftoff that happened to finish as the screen visuals whisked the crowd around the rings of Saturn. Two songs later, the residency’s solitary version of “Friend of the Devil” aired, and it was the faster, all-electric version. Following Mayer’s take on Eric Clapton’s “Lat Down Sally”, the band delivered the night’s highlight, a powerful, 15-minute “Terrapin Station” whose middle jam went longer and deeper than usual, and whose ending played through the final, dramatic progression four times instead of the usual three, each an end-of-residency occurrence reflecting clear onstage joy. The second set was a strong, consistent affair with an unintended but welcome theme: with the exception of late ‘80s ballad “Standing on the Moon” and early ’80s rocket “Hell In A Bucket”, every song in the set was in the rotation on the Grateful Dead’s Europe ’72 tour, their high-water mark as a band: “Bertha”, “Jack Straw”, “China Cat Sunflower” > “I Know You Rider”, “He’s Gone”, “Brown-Eyed Women”, “Brokedown Palace”, and the residency’s singular version of “Turn on Your Lovelight”.

Dead & Company – Sphere – Las Vegas, NV – 5/15/2025

Friday’s show opened in surprising fashion with Weir’s somber reading of Bob Dylan’s “When I Paint My Masterpiece”, making its only appearance of the residency. The “Playing in the Band” liftoff contained very nice passages in the middle of its lengthy jam, and when Mayer followed with “Althea”, it was clear they weren’t going to hold any big material back over the final nights. After a segue into the residency’s sole version of “The Music Never Stopped”, another residency first-and-sole followed in the form of “They Love Each Other”, played at its original faster tempo from 1973. Weir announced the set break after “New Speedway Boogie”, but there was still one more song on the setlist, so the band played “Deal” before the second, this-time-for-real set break announcement.

Very few people without inside knowledge would have predicted that Dead & Company would kick off the second set with their first-ever version of The Crickets’ “I Fought The Law”, a song introduced to the Grateful Dead repertoire in 1993 to much initial amusement before wearing on people quickly. The renewed novelty made it fun once more, and even more fun was the song’s soft ending that drifted into the long-awaited “Dark Star”, which hadn’t made an appearance since weekend two. “Dark Star” drifted into the first version of “Spanish Jam” since 2023 before veering into “St. Stephen”, and this 25-minute trio of songs would fulfill the folks who like the jammiest material the best. “Sugaree” followed and became the lead-in to “Drums” and “Space”. Later, after a nailed-it “Morning Dew” landing, the band shook things up one more time with Wilson Pickett’s “Midnight Hour” as the encore.

Dead & Company – Sphere – Las Vegas, NV – 5/16/2025

The final night of Dead & Company tours and residencies tend to be go-for-it affairs with stellar setlists since there’s nothing left to save for tomorrow. After the “Feel Like A Stranger” opener, “Help On The Way” made its second extremely effective appearance as the liftoff song before its traditional sequence partners, “Slipknot!” and “Franklin’s Tower”. “Tennessee Jed” followed before Burbridge gave one of his rare lead vocal performances on Jimmy Cliff’s “The Harder They Come” and the tried-and-true “Casey Jones” wrapped set one.

Sure enough, the residency’s final set of 2025 contained something special. After opening with Lesh’s “Passenger” to set the momentum, the remainder of the pre-“Drums” segment consisted of an elusive sequence consisting of four of the Dead’s most enduring and popular songs from the 1970s: “Scarlet Begonias” > “Fire on the Mountain”, “Estimated Prophet” > “Eyes of the World”. (Ask any ’80s Deadhead about “Scarlet Fire Estimated Eyes” and we promise they’ll tell you far more than you ever wanted to know.) After Hart’s big wave to the crowd at the end of “Drums” and the short “Space” segment that followed, Weir chose “Looks Like Rain” for the ballad slot before back-to-back Bob Dylan songs. “Tangled Up In Blue” preceded “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” as the final landing song. And then, instead of the expected “One More Saturday Night”, the band opted instead for a beautiful version of “Ripple” before their final bows. When the band exited the stage, the residency’s production credits displayed on the screen instead of the usual steel doors “closing.”

Dead & Company – Sphere – Las Vegas, NV – 5/17/2025

Dead & Company’s next shows are August 1st–3rd, 2025 in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, “Celebrating 60 Years of the Grateful Dead’s Music.” Find out more here and get tickets here.