The Grateful Dead, in some version or another, has been on the road for more than half a century. There have been lots of post-Jerry iterations, but none of them has created a nationwide flower-child wave so big that the whole traveling Deadhead apparatus sprang back to life in all its ’80s–’90s glory. With John Mayer up front, Dead & Company have achieved the rare status of a retrospective supergroup. This summer, the scene—complete with its own incredible Shakedown Street, a wonderfully modern collection of food vendors and tie-dye-heavy merch booths that set up shop outside every show—brought out everyone from Chloë Sevigny to basketball legend Bill Walton, a megafan so associated with the Dead that he is almost as much of a draw as they are at the shows.

“The world’s on fire, and it is one of those hippie moments when peace and love is such a unifying thing,” says Matty Matheson, chef and Deadhead, who went to four Dead & Company shows this year. “It’s rare to let yourself go in modern society... But I was completely free.” Mayer and Bob Weir have slowly and surely developed their own kinesis on the stage, offering fans something deeper than the average live experience, something connected to the past but still vibrant in the modern day, something, it can only be said, that is pulled from the great collective unconscious of good vibrations.

So we’re celebrating the Tour of the Year with a collection of notable fans sharing their special memories from the summer ’19 Dead & Company caravan.

Matty Matheson

Matty Matheson, Chef

I did the first four shows. I did Mountain View, Shoreline, and then the two ones at the Bowl. I've found actual peace with this band. It happened probably four years ago—I always listened to them, but it never clicked. And then I was driving in my car and listening to the Dead station, and I heard “Wharf Rat,” and it was as though I had never heard “Wharf Rat” before. It was one of those moments where I was like, "What the fuck is this?" I really drank the Kool-Aid. It's weird—as a recovering drug addict, I've found this new drug. They’ve filled the biggest, most positive void ever in my life. I would say for the last two years straight, 99 percent of the time I listen to the Dead.

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I hate dancing. I hate dancing at weddings. I just don't really enjoy it for some reason. And when I go to Dead shows, I cannot stop dancing. I'm doing it 100 percent clean and sober. And the thing about it is, I mean, I'm having more fun because I'm so present, and I'm so able to give myself to the moment now.

The world's on fire, and it is one of those hippie moments when it's just like, peace and love is such a unifying thing. I think it is different than, say, going into a Bruce Springsteen show. There is this weird unifying thing that really brings people together, and it's such a beautiful thing. Everyone's there to contribute rather than to take. I feel like a lot of people are there to give.

“Morning Dew” is one of my favorite songs, and on the second night of the Shoreline show, they ended with “Morning Dew.” It was on, man. It was like the rivers were flowing, the fucking spinners were spinning, the lights, the magic. I was watching right in front of the soundboard, and I was having those moments—it's rare to let yourself go in modern society, in a controlled manner. But I was completely free. It ended and it was like, all of a sudden, all my friends were there, and we're all hugging each other—it was very warm.

Romeo Okwara

Romeo Okwara, Professional football player

I went to five. I did two nights at Wrigley and then I did Citi Field. And then I did two nights at Boulder. I had listened to the Dead, but I didn't really have a crazy experience until I went to a Dead & Company show in 2016. Two nights in Alpine Valley. It kind of spoke to me. The people were so happy. And it was just very inviting. It feels like a community. People recognize me from being at other shows in a different location, and that's never, ever happened to me at any other type of concert.

One of the more memorable experiences this summer—I think for a lot of Grateful Dead fans—was in New York, when John brought out one of Jerry Garcia's old longtime guitars, “Wolf,” that he performed with for many years on stage, and that was a really cool experience, seeing that in New York. That was a really wild time just getting to that show. I was at a bachelor party in Lake Tahoe, and in the middle of the bachelor party at midnight, I left to catch a flight out of San Francisco, then to catch another flight at five in the morning to get to New York, and then went straight to the show. And then John pulled out that guitar and I was just like, Wow.

I got a chance to meet a couple of the guys over the years. I've known John for a couple years, just from being a fan of his, and I’ve met Bob. He's just a very wise, wise man. You can tell he's been through a lot and he's seen a lot, and when he speaks, you just kind of sit there and listen. It's like everything else is silent. He's a football fan. He told me that he'd catch the end of a ’9ers game during set break.

Romeo Okwara

Elijah Funk and Alix Ross, Online Ceramics

Elijah: We only missed, like, three or four shows. We usually just go to the show and sell our T-shirts before, and then pack up and just go to the next one. We've been doing that for about four years now. Shakedown is getting a little bigger. Every year I'd say there's, like, another handful of vendors. From the moment we wake up, we’re logistically planning, making sure that our crew gets there on time, sets up on time, gets a good spot on the lot. It takes years to really become connected.

Alix: It's like its own little ecosystem. Like, we’re friends with a burrito stand. We give them shirts every tour, and then they say, “Okay, you guys get burritos”—there's a bit of a bartering system. You kind of just watch after each other. You get to know people over the years. There's a pretty fun scene after the show, so we'll just hang for probably an hour. It's pretty debaucherous. The darker vibes come out at night, but since we're so entrenched in the aspect of selling things at the show, it's really pointless for us to pack up, so we just leave our stand up. People are really high on acid, so everyone's frying. And I mean, an LSD trip is, like, 15 to 20 hours, and people dose at, like, 4 P.M., so they get out of the show and they're still peaking. You're not going to bed. So everyone on the lot is usually high on psychedelics, and a lot of people are doing drugs. People are just tripping.

Elijah: One time one of our really good friends had a psychotic episode.

Alix: And destroyed someone's entire tent. Flipped over all their food. But I don’t want to make it sound too dark or anything. We get to connect with people—we have this mutual love for this music. You're able to just fully have a real, real conversation about the music and connect on that level, and then you feel really, really special about that.

In Chicago this summer, it rained really hard, and I feel like the band really kicked it up a notch for the second set during the rain.

Elijah: The rain affects what's going on. Just the Heads were left.

Alix: And I was like, I'm not missing this. I got the opportunity to run up to the front and get really close and have room to dance.

Elijah: We've gathered hundreds of friends and relationships. Most people don't make brand new best friends when they're 28 years old. But we have.

Mordechai Rubinstein, Mister Mort

The first time I went to a Dead show was when I went to MSG in 2017 to shoot style. I may have heard of John Mayer, but I wasn't a fan. I didn't know who was in the band. My friend Romeo [Okwara] was there, and he said, "I got an extra ticket, want to come in?" And that was it for me. I got turned on, right then and there. I think I went again the next night. I got lucky enough to go to Playing in the Sand. And seeing a show out of New York City, without the concrete, in the openness, on the beach. People were barefoot, people wore slippers from the hotels, people wore robes. I could just sit and look at the ocean.

This year, I went to the Gorge. Everyone pointed me there, saying that the Dead was all about the West Coast. But I’m a New Yorker, and I'm super afraid of camping. I'm such a wuss. I've never camped in my whole life. I got real scared and I'm researching toilets and I'm researching tents and all different stuff. So I relied on two buddies that are super, super, super, super good homies and Deadheads. They packed up the fucking gear. They had everything I fucking needed. It wasn't glamping by any means, but it was car camping, so I could bring all the outfits in the world.

For me, it’s about going out early morning, seeing people go from tent to tent saying hello, giving hugs, brushing their teeth, riding bikes around. And you're looking at mountains. I felt like I was in the seventies, a retro dream come true. Watching people cooking breakfast in the morning. I have a book called Dead Style coming out next year, because it’s all just so good—there’s tons of tie-dye, naturally. There's some short shorts, Birkenstocks. I love the outdoor gear. But what stands out with almost every show is that the style is DIY and site-specific. People have made shirts just for that show—they're not selling them, they're wearing them.

Andy Cohen, Television host

I started going to Dead shows in ’85, ’86. I'd say senior year of high school. Junior, senior year is when I really started experimenting with pot. And we got really into Pink Floyd and the Grateful Dead. And I don't know how I talked my parents into it, but I'm going to say when I was 18, they let me drive up to Alpine Valley in my beat-up ’72 Skylark convertible and sleep in the parking lot with my friend J.J. And then I drove out to Red Rocks with some friends, and we did the same thing out in Red Rocks. And I mean, it's wild that they let me do it.

And then, after Jerry died, I was like, "Well, I guess it's time to grow up. This is over." I didn't see anything that any of the members did, except this local Dead cover band in St. Louis that I would go see every year at Thanksgiving, called Jake's Leg. Then, later, I had been friends with John Mayer, and he was starting to get into the Dead, which I think made us closer friends. And then he told me, "Oh, they're doing this Fare Thee Well concert [in 2015]." So he and I road-tripped from L.A. to San Francisco and saw it. I kept thinking, Ah, this isn't going to be the same. I have money now. I'm not a student. I'm in my forties. There's a lot of gray hair. I don't know. And the second the music played, I was like, "Yee-haw!" I was dancing like I danced in college. It was like no time had passed. I accessed a part of myself that I didn't know was still so available to me.

By that point there were some conversations going on about John joining and starting Dead & Company. And so, I mean, imagine what happens when you think that your favorite band is gone forever, and then one of your buddies joins them. It's been the greatest experience for me over the last four years, to be able to dip in as much as I possibly can. It's been an incredible rebirth for me with music that had lived on in my stereo, that I thought was gone forever, in a live venue. They surprised me and played on my 50th birthday party. They had a gig that night in Philadelphia, and they showed up at about one in the morning and played three songs.

This year I think I've only seen them five times or something like that. Soon I'm taking Jimmy Fallon to his first Dead show, and every week I'm giving him three new Dead songs to listen to. I'm just very in awe of Bob. If I'm ever around him, I'm on Bob's clock. It's laid-back, it's respectful, it's brotherly. Bob calls John “Johnny Boy,” and it's real sweet. I mean, one thing that's been fun for me has been getting to know all the wives of the guys. I call them the Real Housewives of Grateful Dead. Natascha Weir and Caryl Hart. I think their entry point for me is John, and so I always joke to John that I'm his road guy. I feel like his wife sometimes.

Bill Walton, NBA legend

I started going to see the Dead when I was 15 years old, in 1967, in Southern California. I remember how fun it was. How happy it was. How full of hope, and joy, and optimism, and peace, and love, and community, and imagination, and creativity, and exploration, and curiosity, and adventure, and enthusiasm, and passion, and purpose it was. All the things that I still live for to this very day. So much of who I am is because of my life with the Grateful Dead.

We go to as many shows as we possibly can. We go to be educated. We go to be healed. We go to gain confidence. We go to get new direction and inspiration in life. We go to be empowered. We go to see our family and friends. We go to explore the universe. What John Mayer and Oteil [Burbridge] have done for this band, and for this community, for this world, is just spectacular. They're so talented. They're so professional, and they have spirit. They have soul. They have remarkable imagination. They have a willingness to continue to improve.

They played 19 shows on the summer tour, and we went to 11. Our only regret is that we didn't go to all of them. While nobody likes it when the weather is bad at a big outdoor show, those are often some of the most memorable ones. The deluge in Boulder on night one, when they had to stop the show for 90 minutes, and then they picked up on the exact same note while they let the lightning and thunderstorm pass through. Everybody was just soaking wet. Nothing was dry. To have John Mayer go to the front of the crowd and hand out clean, dry T-shirts to the folks who were able to stay—that kindness and goodness and happiness.

I've been going for 52 years, and the other people in this community, they're my best friends. Proud, loyal, and grateful Deadheads. The sense of commitment and gratitude. The gratitude for all the people that have gone before, and so many who have passed on. From Pigpen [Ron McKernan], and Jerry, and Keith, and Brent, and Barlow, and Hunter, and Vince, and Ramrod.

All the things that I'm constantly looking for in my life, it happens there. The people are happy. People are dancing. If I’m injured or sick, I get healed. The Dead are traveling salesmen. And they sell hope. The excitement of leading up to the show, everybody coming into town, and the airport is just full of people traveling to the shows. My purpose is just to be healed, to gain confidence, to learn, to travel through the universe. To think. To dream. You start the show one person, and four hours later, when the show is over, you're a different person. You're ready. You're just saying, “Let's do this again tomorrow.”

I'm the luckiest guy in the world. I'm a Deadhead.

A version of this story originally appeared in the December/January 2020 issue with the title "Tour of the Year: Dead & Company."

Originally Appeared on GQ