How Sweet It Is: Dead and Company at Hershey Park Stadium

Jam band supergroup Dead & Company make their summer tour stop at the land of chocolate, Hershey Park, on August 28. With them as always, following is their eclectic, eccentric, and electric fanbase: the Deadheads, as colorful as their kaleidoscopic visions can take them. The fanbase is incredibly kind, tight knit, dedicated, and functions as a self sustaining community that follows the band.

dead and company hershey

The band started the night with “The Music Never Stopped,” a good way to get things going. “Touch of Grey” proved to be a most apropriate song, one whose message we can all relate to in the midst of a worldwide health pandemic. Mayer shines on “Tennessee Jed” with some fancy chicken picking and long time superstar vocals on “Mr.Charlie.” The band wrapped up the first set with an incredible “Cassidy,” featuring iconic Weir vocal parts and a fast, fun, everyone sing a long “Don’t Ease Me In” to end the set.

Visit NYS Music’s interactive Grateful Dead in New York series, So MaNY Roads

The second set blasted off with a psychedelic “Here Comes Sunshine”, featuring Mayer leading everyone into the sun, vocally and theoretically speaking ofcourse. Now Bobby gets to shine on vocals as the band goes into an epic “Estimated Prophet”. Dancing shoes are coming on and the band pulls of several extended, even for Grateful Dead standards, improvised sections on a massive “Eyes of The World”. Mayer gets to shine on vocals again with “Althea”. And now comes time for the rhythm devils as the rest of the band leaves.

dead and company hershey

After “Space” Dead & Co went into an unexpected Miles Davis cover of “Milestones,” a most psychedelic and sonically unexpected spectacle. They switch gears into “Going Down The Road Feeling Bad” and quickly again into “Death Don’t Have No Mercy.” This featured a somber Weir on vocals, really belting out about death and loss. And to close out the set, a most apropriate “One More Saturday Night” played with all the vigor and groove a Saturday night show should have.

Bobby declares that there is a strict curfew in play so they’ll skip the formalities of getting off stage and get right to the encore which was a thumping sing along, “Quinn the Eskimo.”

Dead and Company – Hershey Park Stadium, Hershey, PA – August 28, 2021

Set 1: The Music Never Stopped -> Easy Answers -> The Music Never Stopped, Touch of Grey, Tennessee Jed, Mr. Charlie, Black Throated Wind, Cassidy, Don’t Ease Me In

Set 2: Here Comes Sunshine > Estimated Prophet > Eyes of the World > Althea > Drums > Space > Milesstones > Going Down the Road Feeling Bad > Death Don’t Have No Mercy > One More Saturday Night

Encore: Quinn the Eskimo

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