Dead & Company Announces 19-Date Summer Tour

– Dead & Company

Dead & Company, the jam band powerhouse that unites founding Grateful Dead members Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, and Mickey Hart with John Mayer, Oteil Burbridge, and Jeff Chimenti, announced their fourth consecutive summer tour Thursday.

The group kicks off the 19-date tour with May 31 and June 1 dates at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, Calif. In 2018, Dead & Company sold 39,256 tickets for a total gross of $2.25 million across two nights at the Dead’s classic Bay Area haunt.

Dead & Company will wrap their 2019 jaunt with two nights at Folsom Field in Boulder, Colo., on July 5-6; they concluded their 2018 tour in similar fashion, selling 62,904 tickets for a total gross of $5.37 million across two concerts at the venue. 

Other noteworthy stops on the tour include two nights at the Gorge Amphitheatre in George, Wash., on June 7-8 — expanded from a single night in 2018 that grossed $1.23 million with 18,226 tickets sold. Dead & Company will also return to Chicago’s Wrigley Field on June 14-15; the band’s 2017 tour included two performances at the hallowed ballpark — which grossed $6.36 million with 79,489 tickets sold — but they skipped the Windy City completely in 2018.

While many major concert tours in recent years have hit massive football stadiums, Dead & Company have continued to embrace baseball fields, along with artists ranging from Billy Joel to Zac Brown Band to Pearl Jam in recent years. 

Dead & Company debuted in fall 2015, after Weir, Hart, and Kreutzmann staged their Fare Thee Well shows that summer with fellow Grateful Dead founder Phil Lesh, and the enterprise has proven lucrative. The band grossed $29.4 million and $51.8 million in 2016 and 2017, respectively, and at mid-year in 2018 had completed the bulk of their summer tour and grossed $26.9 million.

Before embarking on their summer tour, Dead & Company will stage the second annual edition of Playing in the Sand, their multi-date Mexican destination concert event, from Jan. 17-20.

And though Dead & Company have been road warriors since forming, they haven’t oversaturated the market. Weir and Lesh embarked on an acclaimed six-date duo tour in March that took them to theaters in New York City, Boston, and Chicago, and Lesh continues to gig with his Terrapin Family Band. Earlier this month, Weir concluded a fall tour performing as Bob Weir and Wolf Bros. with Don Was and Jay Lane.

Tickets go on sale Dec. 8 at 10 a.m. local time, although various presale options are available.