What would happen if you thought you were preparing for your farewell tour with your bandmates, only to find yourself making a new band? You’d probably be pretty psyched.

That’s precisely what happened with Dead and Company, a Grateful Dead revival project. The whole thing started with the idea for a revival tour called Fare Thee Well and John Mayer’s Grateful Dead obsession. You could say that host of the Late Late Show Ryan Tubridy even had something to do with it. Confused? All will be revealed, fare thee patient.

Fare Thee Well Tour

It seems the twenty-teens are all about reboots and revivals. We got a Full House remake, a Friends reboot is in the works, and Black Sabbath even came back together. So, it was appropriate in 2011, when the surviving members of the Grateful Dead decided to go on a 50th Annivseray farewell tour. Makes sense, right?

At the same time that they were planning this and unrelatedly (in the beginning), John Mayer was becoming obsessed with Grateful Dead’s music. He decided to invite Bob Weir (of the GD) to perform with him on an Irish TV appearance, and an idea was born.

Dead and Company

Why do a farewell tour, when you could add a new member to your band, pull in a whole new generation of listeners, and keep making money? That’s what the members of the GD had to be asking themselves when Weir and Mayer presented the idea of Dead and Company.

However, that conversation went, they must have been convincing, as the band exists and plays together to this day. It’s what the kids these days call a “glow-up” and a successful one at that. The band is continuously selling out huge venues – even football stadiums!