Say Goodbye To Bobby Weir

In the wake of Jerry Garcia's death in 1995, I felt like the Deadhead camp started to split. There were those who felt that Jerry was an amazing performer but the real power was based on the incredible collection of songs that the band had created. On the other end there are those who love the tunes but think that Jerry's singing and playing is what elevated them into epics.

Obviously this is a continuum and fans fell all over the place, but the way that this is important is that it changed how people reacted in the post Jerry era. The people who felt that the heavier lifting came from the songs themselves found themselves gravitating a lot towards post Jerry projects; they can't see Jerry play on Terrapin Station but they get to see Bobby or Phil or Mickey do it and that's how close we can get in this fallen world.

I lean more towards the other end. I love these songs, but many versions just leave me thinking about what we were missing. A Brokedown Palace or a Stella Blue that didn't hit the same gravitas could end up being frustrating.

Now when they did hit that spot - Billy Strings's renditions of China Doll come to mind - I could still feel what caused me to drive thousands of miles, to sleep in rest stops and sell sodas in the lot and eat next to nothing because it was so powerful that I couldn't stay away. It wasn't enough to just play the song, they had to live the song.

As a result, I found myself drifting away from the Dead scene. I'd see a The Other Ones or a Furthur or a Phil and Friends when the opportunity came my way, but too often it would remind me of what was gone more than it brought me there again. I was glad that others enjoyed it, but I largely decided to go another approach in seeing music.

So it was with that attitude that I came into the Dead Forever Sphere run. I was happy that they were doing it but I wasn't rushing to go experience it myself. But then people, people who largely fell on my side of the Jerry/songs spectrum, they all came back with crescendo. "Go see this! It is worth it!" Mel all but ordered me to attend after she went down for a night herself.

With cheap flights to Vegas, an easy to obtain room in the Tuscany, and sub-face 300 level tickets, there just was no reason not to go. I went in with no expectations but with an idea. While I was one of the people who was largely seeing the Dead due to the cult of Jerry, Bob Weir still is an important musician to me. We're all getting old and this could easily be my final time seeing him. If I'm going to potentially have a final show, why not do it at the coolest venue in the country?

I had gone into the show having seen some videos so I knew how it would start. After the first song (Women Are Smarter [1] in this case), the scaffolding would open and we'd be presented with 710 Ashbury Street. We'd move from there further and further away into space. I knew it was coming and yet I was unprepared. The detail of the imagery, just how well they rendered the Bay Area, the way they did the movement, at least once I had to sit down because I was getting dizzy. That's a compliment mind you.

I know that there are two schools of thought about all of the repeat use of the graphics that these shows have done, but in this case, it's perfect valid. This was by far their best piece, one that shows off the venue and the Dead's history, one that looks very cool, and - as Mel told me after she attended - places the entire show in a context, one of a tour from where the band started to the places that they took us, both literal and metaphoric.

As Playin' came to an end in deep space, I looked down at my watch. Unlike the usual rock star schedule, the shows have been starting almost exactly at the 7:30 start time - 7:32 in this case - and somehow it was already after 8 PM. The first half hour had zipped by which is always a great sign.

A quick vortex tunnel - and if there's one thing that Dead and Company did that others should emulate, it's finding cool ways to transition between their set pieces - brought us into the rainforest video. And it's here that my first criticism comes into play. There were a few times where it felt like they put out videos that weren't quite finished yet.

The advantage of the giant ultra high definition screens came into play as we blasted into space. We could focus on small aspects - It's the Golden Gate Bridge up there on the top! Hey! Alcatraz Island! - and the screen was detailed enough that it brought it home. However, it also lets you see when things aren't really ready. The rain falling just looked weird, more like shooting stars and the waterfall just felt off. Also the reuse of their graphics meant that it was paired with the completely unrelated They Love Each Other. Instead of the video complimenting the music, it just made the whole thing seem off. It fell into a weird place of not being abstract enough for us to make our own meaning but not concrete enough to be telling a story.

The rest of the set gave us the pretty cool paint by numbers video where the screen slowly had color added to it, the ticket stub/backstage passes montage (like all good Deadheads, I looked for shows that I attended and I found two: 3/6/92 and then later 9/6/91. For a moment I got really excited when I saw Harford paired with "4/3" as my first show was at the Hartford Civic Center on 4/3/88, but this was at the same venue, two years prior in 1986), and a cool abstract space cloud graphic in Sugaree. That final song was definitely the highlight of the set with Mayer's solo in the end sounding like some of Jerry's better versions in 1977. Sometimes the emulation is successful!

During the setbreak, one punctuated with quotes from Dead songs mixed with time checks to let us know how much longer we'd have to wait, I reflected back and found my reaction to be somewhat surprising. I liked the graphics less than I was expecting to but I liked the music more. One thing that amused me is that twice they had a Jerry tribute but both times it was subtle. He was hanging out in a small part of the screen in the paint by numbers scene and at one point his face appeared in one of the clouds in Sugaree for a few quick seconds. It was a good way of paying homage, putting him in but not having a giant 100 foot version of his face or something.

The second set started with China Cat Sunflower and also what might have been a new graphic, flowers slowly falling down the screen until it filled it up. It finally took over the full screen leading to a more abstract setting until we got a trip through the Dead's past. First the Winterland, then Cornell. Red Rocks, Radio City, and Madison Square Garden. I absolutely loved the idea but here's a case where I really found it frustrating.

The San Francisco opening showed an incredible attention to detail. It was cool to see that incredibly rendered graphic and it's likely to be a permanent memory for me. Red Rocks and the Garden could have been like that too, but instead of going photo realistic, it was more like they gave us just enough so we knew what venue it was and could be amused by the reference, but imagine a complete Red Rocks with Denver off in the distance and then the extra colors and logos they were putting on it. Madison Square Garden was especially off because it looked like it was in a swamp or something surrounded by blocks and blocks of nothing. It looked weird enough that I wasn't sure if it was intentional [2] or just a quickly conceived concept. With some more work, this could have crossed the line between being, "Hey! It's MSG!" to being a life highlight.

I probably wouldn't have spent much time reflecting on this had the music been more captivating but, to be honest, this was the part of the show that didn't work really well. The He's Gone and The Other One were OK but nothing that was forcing all of my attention in that direction. If the show had ended there, I would have said that the reviews were overblown, that it was fun but not that amazing (well other than the Haight to Space segment which might have been worth the cost right there) [3].

The show did not end there.

The one thing that people made a point of saying is that the Drums/Space segment of the show, what usually gets thought of as a throwaway, was a highlight. They were not wrong. The haptic seats gave the deeper parts of the drums extra resonance. The seats vibrated in tune with the drums and as gimmicky as that could have been, it was not over the top or even as obvious as it sounds. It just made the music more powerful. The abstract screen imagery played off of it. If you hear people saying that the Drums/Space section was the highlight of the show, don't roll your eyes or think that that's a back handed compliment. There's truth to it!

I had stopped reading reports of the graphics after the second weekend. This meant that I knew most of what was going to happen but there were still additions that could surprise me. The Wheel was one of them. They had high definition video of waves with images of the Northern Lights in the sky. It was subtle but incredibly effective. It really gave the impression of the band being on the beach as the aurora danced. The reason why I was so frustrated with the pre-drums feeling cartoony or a bit lazy is because when they took the extra effort and really bought into the concept of what they were doing, a simple idea like waves crashing was incredibly epic.

There was a theme for the next segment that followed, and that theme was motion. Franklin's Tower first took us into a space tunnel that felt like a roller coaster (video here) and then into a world that had a giant disco ball where we were constantly rotating a little bit clockwise. And then US Blues gave us the other centerpiece graphic: the play on the Grateful Dead movie.

I had seen this video on my screens many times and I thought it was cute albeit a tad cheesy. I was not prepared for how cool it was at Sphere. We definitely were riding along instead of watching and twice - once when he came driving straight at us, once when he opened his mouth and ate us as a transition to a viewpoint shift - I literally screamed. Yes, it looks kind of lame perhaps when you watched it on your phone. In person it's incredible and just thinking about it makes me want to grab a new room for tonight and go again.

However, if this is indeed my final time seeing Bobby play, last night was the way to go out. As we move back from space slowly to the Haight to the tune of Throwing Stones and then the show ended with a photo montage to Lovelight, I feel like this would be a proper era ending.

Not only did they play Greatest Story - not common for this run but the song that was following me around in my early years seeing them - but it ended, not with a Brokedown that would remind me of what was gone, but in a Bobby pairing common for my time seeing them. Was it home? No. But for times, it was close enough.

The question I keep getting asked is, "Which was better at Sphere: Phish or Dead and Company?" It's a hard question to answer because they were doing very different things, an homage and a reflection of an era vs still trying to create new things. Musically, for my tastes there's no question. The Dead and Company set had moments, but I've actually relistened to some of the Phish shows whereas if I want to listen to The Wheel or Franklin's Tower, I'll put on a show with Jerry.

In terms of visuals, the best Dead and Company image - the rise into space - was the best thing I've seen there. Also, and maybe this is because I was in the 300 level instead of the 100 I was in for Phish, the fun movement things they were doing with vortexes and the motorcycle was much cooler than the few times that Phish had us floating down a river. However, Phish created more cool spaces: the underwater sequence, the alien planets, the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Pollock, that I found myself more frequently engaged. Looking through my photos, I think the attention to detail that Moment Factory did for Phish was important enough to me that I preferred Phish, but I hope in future years they can import some of the ideas that Dead and Company did: increased use of fast motion, transitioning from set piece to set piece via some more abstract designs. And if Dead and Company play here again, I hope they use some of what Phish did in terms of detail to create full immersion into the scenes.

I might have preferred Phish, but the fact that I actually had to think about it is telling. So yes, let me add my voice to the chorus. If you're a Deadhead who is dubious about these post Jerry projects, if you're not sure if it will be worth it. Go. It will be.

[1] I know the real title but if we're having Grateful Dead nostalgia here, I'm going to label it how I did on my old tapes.

[2] I was also going on about why they made the moon so weird during the Great Pyramids graphic in The Other One, but the following morning I remembered that there was a full lunar eclipse during the run and that was what they were referencing. So maybe there's a joke i don't know about where MSG was in the middle of the Hudson or something. Or maybe they cut a few corners there.

[3] Note: part of that was due to the fact that the air conditioning was really cranked up this evening. With it being 106 on my walk in, I was unprepared for the need for an extra layer and by the second set, I was cold to the point where it was affecting my enjoyment. BRING A JACKET!!