Dead & Company Show Support For Parkland Shooting Survivors, Inviting Students To Concert

Rick Kern – Dead & Company
Dead & Company are in the groove at Frank Erwin Center in Austin, Texas, Dec. 2.

In between rocking out at arenas across the U.S. and serenading crowds on Mexican beaches, Dead & Company showed some support to the Parkland, Fla. community two weeks after the town became the site of the country’s most recent mass shooting. 

Dead & Company Facebook https://www.facebook.com/DeadandCompany/photos – Dead & Company With Parkland Survivors

The band, a collaborative project between members of the Grateful Dead and John Mayer, worked with Florida Congressman Ted Deutch to invite students, teachers and parents from the town’s Marjory Douglas High School to its performance at the BB&T Center in Sunrise, Fla., reports Jambands. The high school was ground zero for the Feb. 14 shooting that killed 17 people.

After meeting the survivors, the band appeared onstage wearing T-shirts that read “MSDStrong” and played a set list tailored to show support for the survivors of the shooting. The set list consisted of emotionally and political charged songs such as “Shakedown Street,” “They Love Eachother,”’Eyes Of The World” and closer “Throwing Stones,” which contains the lyrics, “So the kids they dance and shake their bones / And the politician’s throwing stones.”

“Thank you to all the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School,” Dead & Company bassist Oteil Burbridge said in a Facebook post.  “It was so amazing to see you smiling and dancing. Your courage is inspiring”

Dead & Company landed No. 22 on Pollstar’s 2017 Year End Top 200 North American Tours chart with 613,025 tickets sold and $51.8 million grossed. The band sold out plenty of shows on the outing, including two nights at Chicago’s Wrigley Field, which sold 79,489 tickets and grossed more than $6.3 million, according to Pollstar’s boxoffice reports.

The band has dates booked through July. Stay tuned to Dead & Company’s Pollstar artist page to keep up with the band’s latest tour announcements.