Sophia Michaels
Dead and Company are officially gearing up for its final tour.
John Mayer posted a tour poster on his Instagram page that read “The Final Tour: Dead & Co. Summer 2023” and noted the group would have details on tour dates soon.
“As we put the finishing touches on booking venues, and understanding that word travels fast, we wanted to be the first to let you know that Dead & Company will be hitting the road next summer for what will be our final tour,” Mayer wrote. “Stay tuned for a full list of dates for what will surely be an exciting, celebratory, and heartfelt last run of shows. With love and appreciation, Dead & Company.”
As Rolling Stone previously reported in April, sources close to the band said Dead and Company was gearing up to call it quits, but they pulled back on that statement after Bob Weir tweeted his surprise after the story circulated. Now it seems the band is making it official.
Weir also shared the news on Twitter. “Well it looks like that’s it for this outfit; but don’t worry we will all be out there in one form or another until we drop…,” he wrote.
Dead and Company started in 2015 with three of the band’s original members: Weir, Mickey Hart, and Bill Kreutzmann, along with Mayer, Oteil Burbridge, and Jeff Chimenti. The band has been one of the more prolific live acts since their formation, playing each summer (minus 2020 during the pandemic). More recently, though, there’s been some lineup shakeups over some health issues surrounding Kreutzmann. He had to pull out of the later-canceled Playing in the Sand shows in Mexico over concerns related to his heart. Then, during the summer 2022 shows a few months ago, as Variety noted, he missed several dates over a back issue, then a positive Covid test.
Mayer, for his part, had praised the Dead for years before Dead and Company started. As he told Rolling Stone in 2013: “This free expressive sort of spirit — I listen and I want to find a mix of that openness. I kind of want to go to [a show like a Dead] show, if it still existed,” Mayer said at the time. “But I wish that there were tunes that I was more familiar with. I wish that I could be the singer. I wish I could have harmonies.”
