The Grateful Dead spinoff group Dead and Company got started thanks to CBS’ “The Late Late Show.” Guitarist John Mayer was one of the special guest hosts in February during the transition to new host James Corden.

“It was something like my agent knew John’s agent, and he heard John was a Deadhead,” Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir said during a phone interview from Atlanta earlier this week. “They got to talking and thought maybe John would want to invite me to do a guest musical appearance. I showed up and during the sound check, they (eventually) had to unplug us, we were having too much fun. One thing led to another and now we have a band.”

That band, Dead and Company, stops by Minneapolis’ Target Center on Saturday night. In addition to Weir and Mayer, it includes two of the three other surviving members of the Dead (Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann), bassist Oteil Burbridge of the Allman Brothers Band and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti, who has performed with Weir for years and also sat in on this summer’s “Fare Thee Well” shows, which were billed as the final time all four members of the Grateful Dead would perform live together.

The post-“Fare Thee Well” announcement of Dead and Company rankled some fans who paid big bucks for the supposed final concerts. Others worried Mayer, the guy behind such light rock hits as “Your Body Is a Wonderland,” was an awkward fit for the Grateful Dead’s music.

When asked how he felt about the controversy, Weir answered bluntly: “I don’t get it. Is this legacy supposed to die now? I don’t get it.”

As it turns out, many of the complaints faded after Dead and Company’s first show, Oct. 29 in Albany, N.Y. Fans and critics offered rave reports. A critic for Billboard wrote: “fears were immediately allayed as the expert guitarist played with a tone reminiscent of Jerry Garcia’s own, while bringing his own bluesy style to familiar licks. And once Mayer got his first crack at vocal duties, he also didn’t disappoint.” A writer for the fan site Grateful Web echoed that sentiment: “The band just sounded tight, knew their stuff and played effortlessly.”

In a review from the fourth tour stop, in Philadelphia, a critic from the Morning Call even credited Mayer for re-energizing the band: “Weir seemed more engaged and emphatic than he has with any of the other Dead touring collections in recent few years.”

Weir agreed. “I’m more on my toes, and that reflects back to John,” he said. “At this point, I’m not running the show, the show’s running me. And I like that.

“He’s a lot of fun to play with and he can go anywhere I lead him, and I can go anywhere he leads me. He’s put in his homework, for sure. I think he might have got a bellyful of being the be-all, end-all in his musical offerings and got hungry for a group dynamic.”

How does Mayer compare to Phish’s Trey Anastasio, who was part of the “Fare Thee Well” shows?

“It’s hard to compare them,” Weir said. “John plays a lot of way cool blues licks that Jerry never did. Trey has his own wheelhouse, but we couldn’t manage to get as much rehearsal in as I would have liked. For me, Trey was the MVP of that event, but I think we all could have done a bit better in all our given roles with more rehearsal.”

Dead and Company’s Target Center show is the 14th stop on the tour, which runs through the end of the month and then returns for four year-end gigs in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Weir said he hopes to continue touring in 2016 and the band has talked about recording an album. But for the immediate future, the focus is on the live shows.

“We have about 80 tunes worked up at this point,” Weir said. “That’s as many as the Dead did at any given time during their touring years. What we haven’t quite gotten to all the way is pulling stuff off spontaneously on stage. I’d love to be able to do stuff we’ve never rehearsed, (to play a song) that enough of the guys will recognize and be able to fall in behind it. It’s going to take us hanging out on the bus between gigs, listening to all kinds of music together. We’ll get there at some point.”

Pop music critic Ross Raihala can be reached at 651-228-5553. Follow him at Twitter.com/RossRaihala.

IF YOU GO

Who: Dead and Company

When: 8 p.m. Saturday

Where: Target Center, 600 First Ave. N., Mpls.

Tickets: $99-$50

Information: 888-929-7849 or targetcenter.com