“All the years combine, they melt into a dream”
I have a confession to make: I was a teenage deadhead. Throughout my late high school and college years, I traveled all over the country (and to Canada!) with my friends- navigating to camping spots and venues long before cell phones made it easy, selling “kind veggie burritos” in parking lots to feed myself, buy tickets, and keep the gas tank full, and being part of a family and a legacy that had started nearly a decade before I was born. This is part of my history and my identity that I’ve held close to the chest for many years. As a mom, a teacher, a music writer- my identity as a Deadhead often seemed to land me in squarely “uncool” or “irresponsible” territory. And Jerry Garcia was dead. I moved on, fell in love with other bands, music, places and people- and didn’t think too much about the Dead for a few decades.
But the Dead, as it does, kept coming, coming, coming around again in my life in magical and important ways. A cousin of a friend died and his significant cache of pristine Dead albums landed in our record collection. Old friends from my deadhead days kept making happy, unexpected appearances in my life. Deadhead bumper stickers never failed to make me smile, smile, smile. In 2021, as I was struggling through some difficult post-pandemic family issues and preparing for major surgery, old friends from my high school Deadhead days made contact and hooked me up with a “Miracle” ticket- my first Dead and Company show. I had a blast and a powerful realization- this was a better version of the Dead than I had been seeing in the few years preceding Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995, when the shows could be- inconsistent- often depending on Jerry’s health and moods. I was never interested in his solo work but John Mayer is an astonishing guitar player and his energy and sound brought a powerful vitality to the band- and the deeply soulful presence of bassist Oteil Burbidge supported the band with a foundation of mystical low-end power.
When I realized that the Dead was playing at Las Vegas’ astonishing new muti-media venue the Sphere on Jerry Garcia’s birthday, and also that the tickets cost a thousand bucks less than the $1200 U2 tickets I had priced out when the Sphere first opened- we made a plan to visit Vegas, where I had seen the Dead at the Sam Boyd Silverbowl on multiple occasions in the early 90’s. Vegas always feels like the Fall of Rome to me- lighted fountains pumping precious water into the desert air, excesses of every imaginable vice, the most cringey imaginable expressions of capitalism. But all-night casinos full of tripping deadheads was a wild and fun part of my Grateful Dead memories, and flights to Vegas are cheap, so off we went. I knew it would be fun. I did not know it would change how I think about myself and my personal history.
The Dead is a perfect match for the muti-media madness that is the Sphere. Their long strange trip has always featured some of the best iconography in rock music- dancing bears, rose-crowned skeletons, psychedelic turtles- along with the singular best rock logo in music history, the Steal Your Face icon (fight me, Stones fans…) All of these and more were put to good use by the incredible artists and engineers who created the video content for the Sphere. But for me, it was the storytelling that really elevated the experience of the Dead in this fully immersive sensory assault.
The band took the stage shortly after 7:30- John Mayer sporting a new bandage and a slightly pained grin thanks to a recently broken index finger on his fretting hand. After warming the crowd with a cover of Harry Belafonte’s classic “Man Smart, Women Smarter,” in a seeming nod to the new presidential candidate Kamala Harris, the massive video screen transported the band and crowd to the front porch of 710 Ashbury Street, the San Francisco house where the band lived, wrote and played together in 1966. As “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo” meandered, the camera pulled out to a progressive aerial view of the Haight Ashbury, Golden Gate Park (where I slept under the trees with friends on our first ever leg of Dead Tour), San Francisco, The Bay Area, The American West, The United States and finally lifting off into the cosmos. The rest of the show was a psychedelic journey through the sights and sounds of Grateful Dead history- a portal opened to transport the crowd to nighttime in front of the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx where the Dead played legendary shows in 1978. We were transported to the Winterland Arena, a home base for lots of important Dead Shows in San Francisco. We spent some time at the best music venue in the world- Red Rocks- in Morrison, Colorado. We flew over a vast mountain ridge at sunset, celebrating the indomitable spirit of Jerry Garcia with a moving “He’s Gone.” At one point, the Sphere transformed from a globe into enormous square walls covered with Dead Posters, ticket stubs, backstage passes, and other ephemera- the kind of stuff that every Deadhead has a secret stash of.
All of it was breathtakingly entertaining and joyful if occasionally dizzying. But for me, the emotional apex of the night happened at the top of the second set, when a buoyant “Franklin’s Tower” was accompanied by massive dancing figures, towering stories over the band, spinning and dancing with abandon. The Spinners- known to generations of Deadheads for their ecstatic, ritualistic dancing, flying with abandon across the massive space of the Sphere- felt like spirit guides back into my precious vault of memories- dancing with wild abandon alongside my “Bad Girls”- best friends forever with whom I shared the bulk of my Dead show adventures, being flat broke in Philly and receiving a priceless miracle ticket, endless games of Boggle in the lot before shows, finding a precious sleeping spot in a hotel room floor crowded by hippies in freezing Ontario, figuring out how to deal with the inevitable car troubles, wrong turns, heartbreaks, and failed Coleman camp stoves along the way. As Franklin’s Tower transformed into “China Cat Sunflower” the towering pink figures floated off into the sky, and another fantastical video tableau took their place. But my moment with the Spinners at the Sphere came with this overwhelming recognition and confirmation- I am so proud and grateful (sorry) that I grew up, learned to take care of myself, had free-wheeling and magical adventures, and heard incredible, mind-expanding music on the road with the Grateful Dead.
The Dead at the Sphere is an artistic and experiential triumph. It confirmed what Deadheads have known all along- that this band of merry pranksters have offered up a lifetime of life-affirming, transformative experiences, sounds and images for sooo many Deadheads across time and space. I’m still smiling.
The Dead wrap up their 30 show residency at the Sphere August 8-10th. If you love the band, try to get to Grateful Dead Church in Vegas next weekend- who knows which time will be the last time? In the meantime, I’ll be dreaming of the spinners, smiling, and proudly identifying as a once and forever Deadhead.
-Amy McGrath is a writer, teacher, and Deadhead. She’s the managing editor of Audiovore
Check out these amazing photos of Dead Forever at the Sphere by Audiovore’s Michael McGrath:
