John Mayer knows exactly how lucky he is to be playing in the band. The guitarist celebrated good fortune on Tuesday night (Aug. 5) in a lengthy Instagram post honoring his role in the Grateful Dead’s three-day blow-out 60th anniversary celebration in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park over the weekend during three shows by Dead successor band Dead & Company.
“Night 3 in Golden Gate Park celebrating 60 years of @gratefuldead will be a one we’ll never forget. I finally had the chance to play with @treyanastasio, and beyond the full-circle moment of it all, the lock we had going was instant. Trey’s ear-to-fretboard data transfer time is unparalleled. I’m still blown away,” Mayer wrote of his jam with the Phish singer/guitarist on “Scarlet Begonias” and “Fire on the Mountain” on Sunday night.
Mayer also thanked Graham Lesh, son of late Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh, who also sat in with Dead and Co. all three nights of the run, including performing his dad’s beloved composition, “Box of Rain,” with the group on opening night; Phil Lesh died in Oct. 2024 at age 84. “Extra special thanks to @grahamelesh for joining us all three nights. No matter how many shows we play as a band, I will always be a guest in this musical world, and I’ll never lose sight of what is the great honor of my life,” wrote Mayer.
“Happy 60th, Grateful Dead, and long may you run, @bobweir, @mickeyhart and @billkreutzmann,” he added in reference to founding members guitarist/singer Bob Weir and drummers/percussionists Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, before noting that his position to Weir’s right — where late guitarist/singer Jerry Garcia stood for many years before switching to the left — is one of great honor to him. “It must be said… I’ll never come close to playing like @jerrygarcia,” wrote Mayer of the iconic Dead co-founder who died in 1995 at age 53. “But if I can somehow get you closer to him – and to the spirit he created 60 years ago – then I suppose I’ve done my job. Thank you for accepting me.”
Mayer’s post included a sweet photo of the band taking a bow, with the massive crowd — more than 180,000 people attended the trio of shows — arrayed in front of them, as well as shots jamming with Anastasio, Weir and Anastasio and a series of live shots from the shows.