Dead & Company Add Free MSG Show to New York Run
Dead & Company, the collaboration between John Mayer and three-quarters of the Grateful Dead‘s surviving Core Four, have added a third Madison Square Garden concert to their inaugural tour, but this time the band is giving away 5,000 pairs of tickets to the event for free. The November 7th gig in New York will take place as part of the American Express Unstaged series, and Dead & Company have opened up a ticket giveaway for the performance. No tickets will be sold for the performance.
Fans who don’t win a pair of tickets to the MSG concert will still be able to witness the show thanks to a Brett Ratner-directed livestream that night. “People who want to hear the music get to hear it for free and we get to promote our music and share it with people,” Bob Weir told The Associated Press. No tickets for the MSG show will be available to purchase; instead, fans must enter the raffle at Dead & Company’s official site by Thursday, October 8th. While there is no fee to enter the contest, the group asks fans attending the show or watching via livestream to donate to the Robin Hood Foundation.
Dead & Company, featuring John Mayer alongside the Dead’s Weir, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart, kick off their first tour together October 29th in Albany, New York, which will then be followed by the sold-out Madison Square Garden dates on October 31st and November 1st. The band’s trek will continue on until a two-night stand at Los Angeles’ the Forum that wraps up on New Year’s Eve. Allman Brothers Band bassist Oteil Burbridge and Ratdog keyboardist Jeff Chimenti round out Dead & Company, which does not include Dead bassist Phil Lesh.
With just over three weeks to go before Dead & Company make their debut, Weir told the AP about how things are progressing with Mayer in the Jerry Garcia role. “We’re about halfway in and rehearsals are going well, if I may say,” Weir said. “We’ve been through 45 or 50 tunes and I’m not going to tell you that we have them entirely locked down, but we have a good handle on them.”