LIVE REVIEW // Dear John: Dead & Co. @ Fenway Park
Photo: Jay Blakesberg
When my Vermont hippie parents offered me a spare ticket to see Dead & Co. at Fenway Park in Boston, I was conflicted. After all, who wouldn't want to see what was billed as "The Final Tour" of the remnants of cult sixties band, The Grateful Dead? On the other hand, did I really want to spend a sweaty thundery summer night packed into a baseball stadium with 75,000 middle-aged, memory-addled, tie-dyed Deadheads? Even worse, taking the place of the late and legendary Jerry Garcia would be the hated nemesis of my teenage years, John Mayer.
Of course I went anyway, claiming I was there for the three original members, and maybe the three new ones. I would, of course, be ignoring fragrant Laundress collaborator (look it up, it’s true) John Mayer. I have claimed to hate Mayer for the last 13 years in response to his foul treatment of various famous exes, so I'm ashamed and slightly baffled to admit that it took him less than 13 minutes to start winning me over. I won't pretend I know a lot about guitar, but when John Mayer channels the genius of Jerry Garcia you don't need to know anything to feel in your bones that he's good. Like amazingly, spine-chillingly good. I know it’s not possible to recreate the magic of the original Grateful Dead - you just had to be there. But as someone who was born too late to witness the full band in action, I feel lucky to have gotten a glimpse at it.
So how did three solid hours of my erstwhile sworn enemy and a group of old guys jamming on a distant stage, fill my eyes with tears and my heart with joy? I'll be honest, the first two-ish hours weren't as life-changing as I was hoping for. I sang along and swayed with the crowd and as grateful (pun intended) as I was for the moment, I wasn't feeling that electricity that Deadheads always describe. I knew that John Mayer was playing well - mysteriously so much better than he plays on his solo projects - but years of hate are hard to lay aside. As the band walked off stage before the encore, I was feeling content but ultimately ready to begin the long drive home. They had left us on a high, with a long, gravelly cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Not Fade Away”.
The band may have left the stage but that didn't stop the crowd - in fact it ignited them. All of Fenway Park was on their feet, 75,000 people singing “You know my love will not fade away” acapella at the top of their lungs, louder and louder, and rhythmically clapping along with all their might. It was overwhelming. They weren't just singing, they were communing with the band, sending them a message, willing them to stay alive and stay together with the combined force of their love. It forced me to continue my accidental tradition of crying at concerts, and I burst into tears.
Suddenly, the entire night had been recontextualized for me. I couldn't help but be filled with righteous love for the band, living and dead, for every member of the gnarly tie-dyed crowd, and even John Mayer. I finally got it. Almost 60 years too late, and without even experiencing it to even a fraction of the fullest, I understood why people spent their lives following this band and chasing this feeling. As Dead & Co. comes back on to perform a cover of The Band's "The Weight", the group of cool-looking twenty-something-year-old boys in front of me start hugging each other and jumping up and down. I hear the older couple behind me tell each other that this just might be the best day of their lives. There is so much pure emotion in the air, I start crying again. After almost three hours and a drum solo that felt like it took up one of those hours by itself, the energy of the crowd had been waning. But suddenly, full of love, joy, and numerous substances, the crowd was back with a staggering force. It was clear that the Grateful Dead is more than just some guys on a stage, it is a band and an audience together, united in the search for peace and love and beauty and yes, mind-altering drugs.
The walk out of Fenway in the bright stadium lighting was like coming down from a long strange trip.I had arrived adamant that I was not here for John Mayer, I was here to ignore him while experiencing as much of the essence of the Grateful Dead as possible while I still could. Yet somehow he had swiftly changed my feelings of hate to feelings of... less hate? I mean this is a guy who I’ve been scream-singing about in the car for years, who loves doing laundry on tour so much that he collaborated on his own line of detergent; how could he have changed my life so much? I was there to see the Dead, but Mayer stole the show, his guitar and vocals were intertwined with almost every song, often playing circles around his partners on stage. I couldn't help but start to respect him, or at least his playing. Also, it just felt wrong to bring so much hate into a space so full of love. In a week or so, I'm sure I'll have forgotten that I ever liked him, even for a moment. But what I hope will never fade away are the sparks I felt when the audience was singing to the band united in a collective effervescence. And I will always mourn the fact that I could never witness Jerry Garcia cast his magic spell over the crowd. But now at least I can imagine it.
