Dead Alive Again

from The LA Times

How Dead & Company found new life at the Las Vegas Sphere

By Mikael Wood, Pop Music Critic 

LAS VEGAS —  

Four hours or so before they’re due beneath the massive wraparound video screen at Sphere, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and John Mayer amble into a backstage production office like three guys showing up — again — for the work of blowing 17,000 minds.

“Nice to meet you,” Mayer says, grinning as he extends a hand. “John Mayer, Mayer Industries.”

As original members of the Grateful Dead, guitarist Weir, 76, and percussionist Hart, 80, are jam-band royalty; Mayer, 46, is the singer and guitarist known for pop hits like “Gravity” and “Your Body Is a Wonderland.” Together they represent the nucleus of Dead & Company, which on this recent afternoon has just passed the halfway mark of a 30-date summer residency at Sphere, the state-of-the-art dome-shaped venue behind the Venetian resort on the Las Vegas Strip.

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