Dead & Company at The Sphere
For the past 4 days, I have been out in Las Vegas to attend 3 nights of Dead & Company’s residency at The Sphere titled Dead Forever. My flight home is delayed, so I thought I would write down some thoughts while they are still fresh in my mind. As a LONG time Deadhead, I was really looking forward to experiencing this music in this amazing new venue. I splurged for the 3-night VIP pass and sat in Section 108. Without a doubt, this set of 3 shows was the BEST live concert experience I have ever had (and I’ve been to HUNDREDS of shows). The venue elevates the concert experience into a whole new level. What follows is my quick review.
For those of you who haven’t ever heard of The Sphere, it’s a new venue on the Las Vegas strip, and it is by FAR the most technically advanced venue in the world. The space is HUGE and dominated by a MASSIVE screen that serves as a backdrop for the small and sparse stage. The science behind the venue is impressive. The Sphere is the world's largest spherical building, measuring 366 feet tall and 516 feet wide at its broadest point, with a total area of 875,000 square feet. It has seating for 18,600 people and standing room for 20,000. The giant screen is made up of over 1.2 million LED lights, each about the size of a hockey puck, that wrap around the entire building. From a distance, it looks like one big screen, but up close you can see each individual light. The Sphere also has a custom camera system that can shoot 18K video at 120 frames per second - by far the highest definition video I have ever seen. There are 160,000 speakers that create spatial audio - although I have no idea where they put them. There are different zones of audio so the audience can hear different content in different languages. Oh yeah, and it cost $2.3 billion to build. The facilities are amazing - including great food (though overpriced - try the pizza near Section 201 if you can). Getting in and out was EASY - security was great and the vibe in the audience was generally pretty chill. Here are some photos that I took during the shows:
The pre-show festivities that always follow the Dead around are usually concentrated in an area affectionately known as “Shakedown Street” - named after one of their beloved songs of the same name. You often hear people asking “Where’s Shakedown?” It is a veritable flea market of all things Dead merch, and also many other interesting things :). The only thing that wasn’t that great about seeing Dead & Company at the Sphere was that Shakedown was indoors in a ballroom at the Tuscany Suites & Casino. It was really weird and I don’t think the vendors (or anyone else really) enjoyed it. I know I didn’t. They started out in the parking lot, but because it was SO hot outside, they moved it indoors. The tradeoff between comfort and the authentic Shakedown experience was probably a good decision though.
The set lists were all wonderful and I thoroughly enjoyed all three shows - dancing the night away each night. The sound was crystal clear throughout - I could hear every note that everyone was playing - other level of clarity. The video projections were absolutely incredible - it truly felt like the images you were seeing were REAL. Whenever they showed the band playing, I automatically looked at the video images instead of the actual band (and I was pretty close to the stage). What really struck me was that it sounded like the individual audio channel from each musician being featured in each video shot was coming directly from the image. I’m sure that was by design. The video definition was truly incredible.
During the Drums & Space section of the show, the sound was amped up and I could actually FEEL the drums throughout my body - it literally shook me. There are haptic-enabled seats and you really feel everything.
The structure of each show was basically the same - starting out with an opener and then launching into a segment where you start out at the Grateful Dead house in Haight Ashbury, San Francisco (see above). You then fly straight up into space - seemingly on the back of a drone with the highest resolution camera you have ever seen. You get higher and higher until you reach outer space. From there, you experience a series of animations that encapsulate the history and experience of the Grateful Dead. While there were quite a few repeated sections over the 3 shows I saw, there were new sections each night too.
During the set break, there is a countdown clock letting you know how long it is until the start of Set 2 - something very different for Dead & Company - but also kind of cool. They were projecting song lyrics throughout and it kept it entertaining. After the set break you are right back in to the video projections and at the end of the show, the video of outer space returns and you slowly make your way back to the same street in San Francisco, though this time it’s clearly in the 1960’s and a narrator comes in to provide some context about the band. As soon as the narration ends, it’s on to the encore. The first night included a touching tribute to Bill Walton - the Dead’s number one fan.
For a little taste of what it was like to be there, here is a video from last night’s show of the 2nd set opener - Sugaree. John Mayer SMOKED it and the place was going nuts. Enjoy!
While I would LOVE to come back and see some more shows, I won’t be able to anytime soon. This was a VERY special weekend and I loved every minute of it. If you have the ability to make it out to see Dead & Company or ANY shows at The Sphere, I STRONGLY recommend it. My only fear is that no other live music event will ever live up to the collective experience I just had. That certainly won’t stop me from going to as many live shows as my wife will allow me to, but I don’t know if I’ll ever see something so incredible again.
What a long strange trip it’s been.