Dead and Company: Setlist, photos, review from Nassau Coliseum night one

Alex Biese | Asbury Park Press

It's almost too perfect to experience Dead and Company on Election Day — and not just because they closed the show with their most flag-waving number, "U.S. Blues."

The band kicked off a two-night stand at NYCB LIVE, home of the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum presented by New York Community Bank in Uniondale, New York, on Tuesday, Nov. 5. On a day that much of the country headed to the polls, Dead and Company took to the stage and unfurled the very sound of America itself.

The Grateful Dead legacy act's night began, appropriately enough, with a boldly expansive journey through late lyricist Robert Hunter's sweeping American travelogue, "Jack Straw."

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Over the course of nearly 14 sterling minutes, this "Jack Straw" told you everything you needed to know about the Long Island night in store as keyboardist Jeff Chimenti and singer/guitarist John Mayer took lead on a lush, luxurious reading of the song. The number, played at an unhurried pace, allowed the band to settle into Nassau's warm and welcoming acoustics with Chimenti and bassist Oteil Burbridge pleasantly prominent in the mix.

Singer/guitarist Bob Weir was in strong voice, his playing brilliantly intertwined with Mayer's, while drummers Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart cleverly, steadfastly navigated the song's twisting backroads and went full-throttle when an open highway, big sky sound was called for.

We all — band and audience alike — were embarking on a great American night together.

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The trip included visits to well-worn traditional material the band has made its own, including the folk ballad "Peggy-O," which found Weir in full acoustic campfire mode, and the all-hands-on-deck country rocker "Goin' Down the Road Feeling Bad."

This Election Night sonic trip through America also included, naturally, plenty of stops at landmarks of the Grateful Dead's own. The evening's second set was dominated by one of the band's grandest multi-part sequences: "St. Stephen" into "The Eleven," by way of the "William Tell Bridge."

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It was just the seventh time Dead and Company delivered the full sequence in its four-plus years together, and it was played with stunningly righteous power and grace. The "William Tell" passage was particularly punchy and forceful, almost as if the band was reveling in the fact that the tricky passages were firmly under its command.

There were also tender moments that felt like direct dedications to the memory of late Grateful Dead singer and guitarist Jerry Garcia, just one year shy of a quarter century gone. While Garcia's spirit is felt in the whole enterprise, Burbridge's lovely lead vocal on the Garcia solo number "Comes a Time" and the affectionate interplay between Weir's vocal and Mayer's guitar on the ballad "Stella Blue" served as impassioned invocations.

There were plenty of stories to be told along the way. Tales of bootlegging families ("Brown Eyed Women"), gamblers ("Deal") and miners ("Cumberland Blues"), all words from Hunter.

Hearing these tales of folks down on their luck, on the outskirts of society, played before an adoring, cheering crowd of thousands had a profound effect. These characters are all of us in our darkest times and hardest days, and nights like this make it clear that we're never really alone.

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Dead and Company's six-show Fall Fun Run mini-tour kicked off with Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 performances at Manhattan's Madison Square Garden, and returns to Nassau Coliseum Wednesday, Nov. 6. They then play Nov. 8 and 9 at the Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, Virginia.

Dead and Company will reconvene on the West Coast for Dec. 27 and 28 performances at the Forum in Los Angeles before closing out the year with Dec. 30 and 31 gigs at the Chase Center in San Francisco.

Set list

Set One

Jack Straw Deal Peggy-O Brown Eyed Women Looks Like Rain Easy Wind Cumberland Blues Casey Jones

Set Two

Here Comes Sunshine St. Stephen William Tell Bridge The Eleven Comes a Time Goin' Down the Road Feeling Bad Drums Space The Other One (verse one) Stella Blue Not Fade Away

Encore

U.S. Blues

ShowBiz Minute: Hunter, Cosby, Domingo Robert Hunter, Grateful Dead's poetic lyricist, dead at 78; Bill Cosby hit with $2.75M legal bill after losing dispute; more. (Sept. 25)

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