Caught: Dead & Company, Madison Square Garden, Nov. 1, 2019.

Dead & Company
Madison Square Garden, New York, NY
November 1, 2019
Section 210, Row 12, Seat 2

Personnel:

Bob Weir, guitar & vocals
Bill Kreutzmann, drums
Mickey Hart, percussion
John Mayer, guitar & vocals
Oteil Burbridge, bass, vocals, drums
Jeff Chimenti, keyboards & vocals
Maggie Rogers, guest vocals (*)

First set:

Cold Rain and Snow
Hell in a Bucket
Row Jimmy
Ramble On Rose
Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo
Mr. Charlie
Friend of the Devil *
Bird Song

Second set:

Scarlet Begonias >
Fire on the Mountain >
He's Gone > Smokestack Lightning > He's Gone >
China Cat Sunflower >
I Know You Rider >
Drums >
Space >
Althea >
Morning Dew

Encore:

The Weight *
Brokedown Palace

My fifth Dead & Company show, and a really strong outing for the band… so strong, in fact, that for the first time ever I had this weird sensation of a Dead band that was too good—by which I mean almost too clean and proficient to convey authentically the ragged glory this institution represents.

The first set was mind blowing, something I rarely feel about a first set, at least not until the home stretch. But this one was ON from the word go, Mayer playing at a level of energy and excitement that carried everyone along with it.

It was SO good, so ideal in fact, that at some point late in the first set, I started to get the sense of a Disney animatronic facsimile of the Dead: clean and perfect, everything just where it belonged, warts airbrushed off. I was strangely relieved, then, by a couple of really awkward transitions between songs in the second set, which served to prove that this remains a new version of the same old daredevil band, and simply having a really good night.

My general response is that the first set was heavier than the second, but I'm willing to admit that it had been a long, long day, and I was growing tired—I look forward to listening to the show again on Nugs to hear that second set in the clear light of day. I definitely recall the back half of "He's Gone" went into a hard blues direction; Setlist.fm presently calls this a transition to "Smokestack Lightning" and back again, but I heard it more as a passing allusion and Nugs agrees. Whatever your view, this hit Mayer's sweet spot dead on, and he lifted the whole bandstand, luring Weir into some righteous growling. Or maybe it was the other way around?

Maggie Rogers, unknown to me, did some lovely, soulful singing on "Friend of the Devil" and "The Weight." (A friend later reminded me she'd been the subject of the subject of much coverage in 2016, as an NYU student whose demo had floored Pharell Williams in a video clip that went viral.) Hearing her in the mix, I thought again about a Dead & Co. show I was supposed to see, but didn't: Fenway Park in 2016, during the band's one tour with Donna Jean Godchaux. Not that Rogers sounded anything like that famous forebear; it was just the sound of a woman's voice in the mix, making me nostalgic for the one that got away.

Far too many photos after the jump…

More photos from Madison Square Garden, Nov. 1, 2019