Dead & Company Mold Las Vegas Sphere In Their Image at Novel & Nostalgic Opening Night: 5 Best Moments

The first visual surprise of the night was when the scaffolding on the screen split in two (in a lightning bolt arrangement, no less) to reveal a Victorian house in the San Francisco neighborhood of Haight-Ashbury, where the Grateful Dead formed in the mid-1990s '60. As Dead & Co. were playing the odd “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo,” the camera's view grew wider and wider, morphing from cars driving past the house to the full grid of the city of San Fran on the Golden Gate Bridge. clouds floating above the Earth itself. While the visual took the space into space, the stage was originally grounded in the very place where it all began for the rock band. And we would return to that same house one more time before the last song of the night, making a reverse course through the world back to the Bay Area.

At several points in the night, it was clear how long these guys had been playing together. Weir and Hart have nearly 60 years under their belt as a unit, of course, but even Dead & Company are approaching a decade together, dating back to their formation in 2015. And with the musicians' famously improvisational style, there's so much unspoken collaboration that happens nightly on stage that requires visual cues not to go off the rails. It also leads to some great reactive moments where you can see your bandmates reacting musically to something they're hearing in real time. Our favorite example on opening night was during “Standing On the Moon,” when Weir unleashed his strongest vocal of the night, growling out loud, “I'd rather be with you!” Mayer responded by bringing the same power to his guitar strum, answering Weir's visceral wail with a sassy hard-rock chord.

The band's commitment to the music is very serious, but it wouldn't be a Dead show without some fun, too. One of the major differences between how U2 used the Sphere Screen and how Dead & Co. used it. was the number of silly, colorful animations that rolled out Thursday night. During “Uncle John's Band” — which was also the moment of the night — the backdrop started out as a blank by-the-numbers design before gradually filling in every color of the rainbow (including a literal rainbow curving over the band). The most adorable part of the scene? To the left and right, there were dancing turtles playing tambourines and banjos, respectively, in reference to the turtles on the band's 1977 album cover Terrapin Station. It was hard to look away from the cute cartoons.

The Deadheads' dedication knows no bounds, and their energy was an integral part of Thursday's show. To close out the night's final song 'Not Fade Away', the band's on-screen video cut to a wide shot to show the rows of fans on the floor around the stage en masse repeating the last line: 'You know baby don't it'll be off.” It was only fitting that one of the evening's final images included the superfans who have endured this long, strange journey for nearly six decades.

In honor of these fans, Vibee created the Dead Forever Experience at the Sphere-neighboring Venetian Resort. It will be open from Wednesday to Sunday, from 10am. to 6 p.m., throughout the residency and features photos of the Grateful Dead from 1965 until the death of founding member Jerry Garcia in 1995. A participation series Pop-Up that gives fans the opportunity to support various non-profit groups . a vintage Volkswagen bus alongside the new electric model. The guitars Weir and Mayer play at the Sphere every night on display. and an exhibit of Hart's “vibrating expressionist” art, which he creates through his drums. On the photo display, there's an image of the famous Haight-Ashbury house referenced at the opening and closing of the Sphere exhibition, as well as a 1:4 scale model of the band's famous “Wall of Sound” speaker display built for Dead concerts of 1974, which is also mentioned in the residency (see the photo above).

In the audio of an old newscast playing during the final Haight-Ashbury scene, the reporter says of the Dead's loyal fans: “These free-spirited show-goers would rather the music never stopped.” Just last year, Dead & Company embarked on their 'final tour', which concluded at their home base in San Francisco, and while fans have now been treated to this 24-hour residency, it remains to be seen what the future may hold for the band beyond from it. The last few songs — “Hell In a Bucket,” Bob Dylan's “Knockin' On Heaven's Door” and “Not Fade Away” — all deal with mortality in some way, though we can't tell if that refers to the band or its aging members (Hart is 80, Weir is 76), or the fact that death already rocked the band when Garcia died. One thing is clear: No matter what happens after the Sphere residency, this fan base will never let the music stop.

SET 1
Feel like an outsider
Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo
Jack Straw
Bird song
Me and my uncle
Women with brown eyes
Cold rain and snow

SET 2
Uncle John's Band
Roadside assistance
Slipknot!
The Franklin Tower
Left
Drums
Space
He stands on the moon
Saint Stephan
Hell In a Bucket
Knockin' On Heaven's Door
Not Fade Away

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