Unlike the many thousands of Gen X-ers who were indoctrinated into the cult of Jerry by their blissed-out parents, John Mayer stumbled upon The Grateful Dead late in life. The story goes like this: In 2011, Mayer came across the Dead on Spotify. It changed his life, man… Several years later, in 2015, he struck up a relationship with Bob Weir after trading licks with the founding Dead guitarist on late night TV. The pair ultimately recruited two more original members—Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann—as well as virtuosic veteran players Oteil Burbridge (bass) and Jeff Chimenti (keys). Jam on.

Dead & Co.
Fri-Sat, 7pm, $49+
Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View

Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, and Bill Kreutzmann—along with John Mayer, Oteil Burbridge, and Jeff Chimenti—rolled through their old Grateful Dead stomping grounds, Shoreline Amphitheatre (which Bill Graham allegedly designed to resemble the band’s iconic “Steal Your Face” logo from above.

Naturally, Deadheads young and old turned up in force, many without tickets and hoping for a “Weiracle.” Metro sent our photographer Greg Ramar to capture all the action. Check out the pics below, or click here for the full gallery.

Many Bay Area Grateful Dead fans knew it wouldn’t be a proper farewell without at least one Bay Area performance, and now the band is delivering with two scheduled “Fare Thee Well” concerts at Levi’s Stadium this June.

The Grateful Dead, which earlier this year announced three concerts in Chicago this July 3-5 as their final performances, announced two additional shows at the Santa Clara stadium on June 27-28 in a letter to fans:

Although none of us knew it when we walked off the stage at Soldier Field on July 9, 1995, the Grateful Dead’s long strange trip ended in Chicago that night. As you are aware, twenty years later, we’re returning to Chicago to properly say Fare Thee Well.

But every good ending must start with a beginning. For us, it all began fifty years ago when we grabbed a bunch of instruments off the walls of a music store in Palo Alto California and began banging away on them in the back room, at night after the store had closed for the day.

Since we made the decision to go back to Chicago to say our final goodbye, it has become clear to us that we first need to return to our beginnings, where we first said hello — to each other and to all of you. [read the entire letter HERE]

And it appears that after more than 50 years in existence, the long strange trip for the iconic Bay Area band is finally winding down.

“We will not be adding any more Fare Thee Well shows,” the band wrote to fans. “The three Chicago shows will still be our final stand. We decided to add these two Santa Clara shows to enable more of our fans to celebrate with us one more time. But this is it.”

In addition to original members Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, the band will also feature Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio, pianist Bruce Hornsby and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti.

After problems with scalpers with the Chicago shows, the band will release 65,000 tickets for each Levi’s Stadium show via its online mail order system on Dead50.net.

Deadheads, scholars, and Deadhead scholars convened at San Jose State University’s King Library over the weekend for So Many Roads: The World in The Grateful Dead, a symposium to wrap up a four-day conference on the seminal jam band.

Memorabilia, including posters, handbills, paintings, T-shirts and other items were displayed and on sale at the symposium, which commemorated the touring community, which formed around the band—a topic which was discussed at length during the conference.

Highlights from the day included a round-table discussion titled, If Mercy’s In Business: The Grateful Dead in the Business World with famed venture capitalist/musician Roger McNamee; the Doobie Decibel System performing at the reception; and an extensive exhibit of the art of the Dead and Deadheads on the 7th floor of the SJSU library.

The exhibit on the 7th floor included famed posters and handbills for shows such as the closing of the Winterland with the Grateful Dead, NRPS, and The Blues Brothers. The exhibit also included a display of fan and Dead made t-shirts from the ’80s and ’90s. The art of the Grateful Dead—including album covers, posters, handbills, backdrops and T-shirts—played major role in shaping the way concerts and pop music are promoted.

Notable attendees at the Nov. 7 event included Jerry Garcia’s ex-wife Carolyn “Mountain Girl” Garcia, Jerry’s daughter Trixie Garcia, and artist Stanley Mouse. On other days of the So Many Roads conference, attendees and presenters included Bill Kreutzmann, drummer for the Grateful Dead, Grateful Dead photographers Bob Minkin, Jay Blakesberg, Ed Perlstein, Susana Millman, and Rosie McGee.

Check out these photographs of the event by Metro photographer Jamie Soja:

Stanley Mouse (left) and Roger McNamee (right).

“I got into music quite early,” says Lila Downs, the Grammy-winning singer/actress whose music blends traditional Mexican folk music, jazz, rock and soul—and who is one of the headliners for this year’s VivaFest! at HP Pavilion on September 16.

“According to my mother,” Downs says, “I started imitating traditional Mexican musicians, and also American musicians like Bob Dylan, when I was little. I went to school, and studied anthropology and voice. Then I dropped out of college and followed the Grateful Dead. That really brought me full circle to a whole other relationship with music—to the notion of community and a realization about how similar we really are as people.”

This eclectic start, Downs says, inspired her to approach music in the same way as the Dead and other jam bands, while incorporating themes from her multiethnic background: “I’m American and a Mexican at the same time, and Indian on top of that, from a native group called Mixtec. My grandma and my mom always spoke in their native language. That was also was cause for some discrimination in Mexico when I was growing up.”

Her latest album, Pecados y Milagros (Sins and Miracles) was released last fall, and is a bit of a departure from her previous efforts, but it was still hugely successful. The New York Times called it “sleek modern Mexican pop with a thrilling, chameleonic voice at its center,” and it debuted at number one on the Billboard Top Latin Albums.

Part of the appeal of the album, Downs believes, is that, as she’s matured, she’s tapped more deeply into her religious faith.

“I think as you get older, your music just kind of melts into what your trying to say,” Downs explains. “My writing isn’t so explicit anymore; it’s more about metaphor. Faith is a very unusual, amazing quality that humans have, and it comes in so many varieties and ways you can interpret it.
“For Mexicans, it’s a very particular interpretation with its Christian and Catholic iconography, but it’s not only that, it’s a belief in nature, of mystical spirits and the spirits of old revolutionaries and things like that. My mother even says to me, ‘Whoever you think is dead or has passed, put his [image] up on the altar, and we’ll ask for miracles.’”

She continues, “So it’s a very apocryphal kind of religion, and I find it very liberating in these times. Especially in Mexico, which has been going through a wave of violence for quite a while now. In these desperate times you tend to think a lot about God.”

Her faith isn’t without its beneficiaries. Downs has long been celebrated for her social activism. She is still eager to help make a difference in peoples’ lives.