Dead & Company Add Fresh Content, Soar Higher on Night 2 at Sphere

Las Vegas is filled with even-better-off Deadheads, now that Dead & Company has played the second night of its second Sphere residency, and captivated multi-night attendees with a show that added plenty of fresh visuals not seen on the opening night, as well as what many on hand were describing as an even more intense performance, and maybe even one of the band’s best.

Anyone who thought that the group was showing off all its new video tricks on night 1 was mistaken. Night 2 had a good number of freshly premiering visual setpieces spread across Friday’s three and a half hours, along with the return of some familiar elements from the initial 2024 Sphere run that were missing from Thursday night’s first show. What’s clear is that co-creative director John Mayer has been busy overseeing new content for the 2025 show, only a portion of which attendees will see on any given single night during the run.

Two of the video additions in Friday night’s show count as major ones. One accompanied the 13-minute-plus version of “Uncle John’s Band” that started off the second set: a backdrop of hundred-feet-tall dancers getting their groove on behind the group, by themselves or with each other, behind the pint-sized players. Eventually, the dancers’ feet left whatever counted as the ground in this situation, and they swam and/or flew across the massive oval screen, in what you could almost believe was a euphoric real-time response to some of Mayer’s more fevered soloing.

The other major addition was a giant digital tapestry that moved slowly up or down the giant canvas behind the Dead, with surreal animation that had more wealth of detail than the naked eye could take in, even over the course of an extended Dead jam. It was faintly reminiscent of the most ornate assemblage that U2 put up during its own premiere engagement at Sphere — in this case, a vaguely circus-themed tableau that had, among other elements, dozens of coffins containing Uncle Sams being dropped through long tubes and turned into compost as they reached the bottom of the screen.

Night 2 also offered a fresh addendum to an existing favorite piece of animation: their signature skeleton’s wild chopper ride. After Uncle Sam got on the motorcycle, as previously seen on every night of both residencies, there was an edit, and then a cut right to the skeletal avatar driving around a neon cartoon rendering of the streets of Las Vegas. On the previous night, Uncle Sam’s full trip got cut off right when the song did, as the icon arrived in Sin City; this cut went on for minutes beyond that.

There were other less high-concept additions, like a simple green-laser-like portrayal of the band’s signature dancing bear in what the curved screen managed to make appear to be a room with corners. But there was also the removal of some setpieces that had premiered on Night 1 — most notably, the recreation of the back cover of “From the Mars Hotel” that was such a visual highlight on Friday.

Deadheads who bought tickets for an entire weekend’s worth of shows are no doubt feeling more justified in that decision, given how there will likely be unique visual content across all three nights at this point, in addition to the musical setlists consisting of no-repeat weekends.

Visuals aside, Friday’s performance was immediately hailed by some fans as one of the better ones in the 10 years since Dead & Company formed 10 years ago, out of the long-lingering ashes of the Grateful Dead. On Thursday night, reactions had been a bit more measured, with Variety‘s own review saying that the opening set was a bit heavy on basic boogie material, but the second set was the band at its most expansive and brilliant. Friday night’s show was structured very differently, especially in the first half, which found some jazz-fusion-type jams happening much earlier in the performance. And from the elevators to the fan boards, nearly all reactions seemed to be in agreement that the show was on fire from the very beginning of the first set through the finale.

Comments on Reddit included remarks like: “Top 5 D&C shows ever” (from a user named “toastypoopdog,” so take that for what you will), “What a smoker of a show,” “It was fucking beautiful,” and “This was a certified heater. Haven’t heard them play that well in ages.” In the San Jose Mercury News, critic Jim Harrington reviewed the show under the headline “Dead & Company bounced back with vastly superior Night 2 show,” saying “the musicianship was so stellar that even the high-flying Sphere graphics took a backseat to the band itself (and no, that doesn’t happen often at the Sphere).”

Although most of the set was familiar to fans, there was one number that had not been played by Dead & Company before: a premiere cover of Eric Clapton’s “Lay Down Sally.” It is not without precedent in Dead offshoot lore, though, as it had been played many times by the Jerry Garcia Band.

A couple of other aberrations: While Mickey Hart’s “Drums” segment is usually followed by all of the non-percussive instrumentalists returning to the stage for a brief, quiet, ambient jam. on Friday night, fans were delighted by something more off the beaten track, as Oteil Burbridge reclaimed the stage, alone, for several minutes of pure bass solo.

And while the “touching down in Haight Ashbury” moment near the end of the second set had on Thursday served as a surprise tribute to the late Phil Lesh — with his animed silhouette appearing alone in the second-floor window, and voiceover from a Lesh interview — that was apparently a one-night only homage. In Friday’s show, that bit returned to how it was in all of the previous year’s show, with newsreel voiceover and the full band’s shadows in the window.

Setlist for Dead & Company at Sphere, Las Vegas, March 21, 2025:

Set 1
Cold Rain and Snow
Shakedown Street
Cumberland Blues
Lay Down Sally
Tennessee Jed
Sugaree

Set 2
Uncle John’s Band
Estimated Prophet
Eyes of the World
St. Stephen
Drums
Space
Oteil Solo Jam
Wharf Rat
U.S. Blues
Throwing Stones
Casey Jones