Dead & Company pay tribute to Phil Lesh with ‘Box Of Rain’ performance
Dead & Company have paid tribute to late Grateful Dead bassist and co-founder Phil Lesh at the Las Vegas Sphere – watch fan-shot footage of the performance below.
Lesh died in October at the age of 84. A statement shared on social media at the time said that he “passed peacefully” and was “surrounded by his family and full of love”.
This past weekend (March 20-22), Dead & Company – who are made up of Grateful Dead‘s Bob Weir and Mickey Hart alongside John Mayer, Oteil Burbridge, Jeff Chimenti and Jay Lane – returned to the venue after a wildly successful residency this year, which saw the band perform in front of the Sphere’s 240-foot screens from May to July 2024.
For their residency, the band are playing an entirely new setlist every night, and to close out their first weekend of the 2025 residency, Dead & Company performed ‘Box Of Rain’ – which was Lesh’s signature track with Grateful Dead – as their final song on March 22. It marked the first time the band have performed the song since his passing.
Archival footage of Grateful Dead and Lesh were shown on the massive screens as Dead & Company performed – check out fan-shot footage of the moment below.
Dead & Company are due to perform 15 more dates between now and May 17 – tickets are now on sale here, with hotel packages and VIP bundles available.
This year, Grateful Dead will celebrate their 60th anniversary. Back in November, the band revealed that they had plans for a reunion featuring its four core members to celebrate the milestone, though that was abruptly put on ice due to the passing of Lesh in October.
Shortly after Lesh’s passing, remaining Grateful Dead members Bobby Weir, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart opened up about how they were considering a reunion to celebrate the band’s 60th anniversary this year with Lesh and had scheduled time to rehearse.
Last week, Weir opened up on the chances of the Grateful Dead reuniting without Lesh: “I think when Phil checked out, so did that notion, because we don’t have a bass player who’s been playing with us for 60 years now. And that was the intriguing prospect.… I think you need somebody holding down the bottom. Phil had all kinds of ideas that were pretty much unique to him. I grew up with Phil holding down the bottom in his unique way.”
However, there may still be hope for a Grateful Dead reunion, as Weir hasn’t closed the door on their return entirely: “I suppose I could go back out. I wouldn’t put anybody in his place, so it would be a trio at this point. It’d be me and two drummers. I’d have to think about that. I haven’t thought about it — it’s just now occurring to me that it’s a possibility that we could do that, since you asked.… I guess we’ll just see what the three of us can pull together.”
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Surej Singh
NME
