Mayer will be playing two hours of Grateful Dead and Dead & Company music on Sundays via his SiriusXM channel
In the wake of the death of Grateful Dead co-founder and guitarist Bob Weir, his Dead & Company bandmate John Mayer looked to listen to Grateful Dead music to find some comfort. Instead, Mayer said it made him feel more solitary. So, to bring the community together, the singer-guitarist is launching a Grateful Dead Listening Party.
“In the days after we lost Bobby Weir, I tried listening to Grateful Dead music as a way to be soothed. I found it harder than I’d thought,” he wrote on Instagram on Thursday. “I felt as if I was listening alone, like the mainframe that connects all who listen at any given time had gone offline. (It turns out that a presence like Bobby’s makes for an immeasurable absence.)”
But the singer-guitarist who joined Dead & Company in 2015 was not alone. “After talking with friends who felt the same, I knew I wanted to start Grateful Dead Listening Party,” he added.
The listening party will take place on Sunday nights at 9 p.m. ET via his “LIFE with John Mayer” Sirius XM channel, where he’ll play two hours of his favorite Grateful Dead and Dead & Company recordings “while also talking a little about each one,” he wrote. “It’s a way for those who have felt lost to ‘meet up’ and listen to the music together. It’s not live, but I’ll be tuning in. Sometimes the least you can do is also the most you can do… we shall find a way forward.”
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Mayer recently reflected on sharing the stage with Weir, who died in January at the age of 78, in an emotional interview with Rolling Stone. Recalling playing next to Weir, Mayer said, “It changed over the years, because we both got to know each other and trust each other. And I also became more comfortable with the music.” He added that from around 2023 on, he felt he could read Weir’s signals, “I just knew the way his head moved — we all do — and had an understanding of what his instincts were night after night.”
“We were aligned. Bobby and I both had the same clock — where he knew what I was going to do, and he knew I’d give it back and go, ‘All yours,’” he added. “There were times where Bobby started singing as a way of letting me know, ‘That’s the end of your solo, son.’”
