Fare you well: Dead & Company packs in 'millennial Deadheads,' 'old man' superfans and everyone in between for its final tour

Jun. 29—When it's 90 degrees in Boulder, tie-dyed shirts crop up way more than fashionably tolerated and a heavy smell of the devil's lettuce makes you wonder if you have a contact high from second-hand clouds of smoke, you can assume one thing: Dead & Company are in town.

This latest, and celebrated, Grateful Dead spinoff band has been attracting fans — new and old, near and far — to Folsom Field on the University of Colorado Boulder campus, where they've played every year (barring the dark ages of COVID-19) since 2016.

This weekend, Dead & Company — made up of Grateful Dead members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart, along with Oteil Burbridge, Jeff Chimenti and John Mayer on the roster — will return to Boulder one final time, gracing Folsom Field for "The Final Tour" with a rare three-day stint Saturday through Monday. Showtimes are at 6:30 p.m. each night. Saturday's show is sold out; tickets are still available for the Sunday and Monday shows.

Although this local newspaper was unable to reach a member of the band for an interview, we were able to get in touch with the next best thing: Tonio O'Brien, the man who gave Bob Weir a piece of gum back in 1977.

"You can just tell they love it in Boulder," O'Brien said, of Dead and Company's tour schedule. "Why else would they put three stops on the tour?"

O'Brien has been a Deadhead since the early '70s when he was a teenager living in Ohio. His love for the band has carried him to more than 50 Grateful Dead shows across the country, 10 Dead & Company shows and countless other Dead spinoff concerts.

His admiration for the band culminated in 1977 when, after failing to get into the Grateful Dead concert at the famous Barton Hall at Cornell University, O'Brien saw Weir wandering on the neighboring Cayuga Street in Ithaca, New York.

"I kind of panicked, and I said, 'Hey man, do you want some Big Red?' and he looked at me for a minute, and was just like, 'Sure, man,'" O'Brien said. "Even to this, day people are like, 'Can you believe that you were so close to getting into the most-talked-about Dead concert ever?' and to that I say, 'No. What I can't believe is that Bob Weir called me 'man' and took my last piece of gum."

O'Brien is traveling from Kansas City to see his hero take one final bow with Dead & Company. O'Brien said that this will be own his final bow with the Dead, too.

"I'm an old man now. I can't party like I used to," he said, laughing. "It seems fitting that Dead and Co. are saying goodbye right now because I'm about ready to say goodbye to that life, too."

'Millennial Deadheads'

Also traveling in for the show is Taylor Palmer. But unlike O'Brien, Palmer appears to be saying "hello" to the Dead lifestyle.

Palmer and her husband Mike saw their first Dead and Company show in 2017 after they purchased $20 tickets on a whim during a summer concert sale in Arizona.

It was love at first concert.

"Basically from that moment on, we fell in love with the Dead scene — the people, the music, the everything. It was immediate," Palmer said. "And then we just started to go to as many shows as we could."

Palmer quit her job as a lawyer, her husband quit his job as a financial analyst, and together, the pair bought a 1986 camper van to travel the U.S. and to see as much live music as possible.

"We go to small Dead cover bands, we go to Grateful Dead festivals," Palmer said. "We call ourselves millennial Deadheads now since we are way too young to have ever seen the original Grateful Dead."

The pair now makes a living selling fun and funky threads on an Etsy website, catering to the younger generations of music lovers — specifically the Dead, Phish and Taylor Swift.

One might be asking — what does Taylor Swift have in common with two of the largest jam bands to ever exist? The answer is simple — the types of fans.

"A lot of it has to do with the fan bases," Palmer said. "The Swifties, the Deadheads, and the Phishheads — they're all kind of obsessive. After going to some concerts, we realized that there was a huge overlap in the fandom, and we decided to make a couple of crossover shirts for fun."

According to Palmer, their company, Live Music Threads, truly blew up after the drummer of Phish, Jon Fishman, posted a photo wearing one of her designs to a Taylor Swift concert with his daughters.

Now the Palmers make enough money to travel the country full time, following all of their favorite musicians and seeing shows wherever they decide to park their van. In the three years since quitting their jobs, the Palmers have upwards of 100 shows under their belts — 13 of those seeing Dead and Company, 30 of those in Colorado and five of those in Boulder.

Palmer's best advice as a seasoned concert-goer for out-of-towners attending a Dead and Company show in Boulder?

"One thing that's different about this show in Boulder is that you have to prepare your body far in advance than at other shows," Palmer said. "A lot of people from out of town don't prepare for the elevation in Boulder, and they don't drink enough water or use enough sun protection, so they kind of get baked and dehydrated really quickly. So make sure you account for that if you aren't from Colorado and are traveling in."

Sage wisdom.

Full circle

While thousands of attendees are expected to arrive from out of town this weekend, Debra Lambert only has to walk down the street to make it to Folsom Field.

The University of Colorado Boulder alum first saw the Grateful Dead when she was in college in 1980 after a friend convinced the reluctant Lambert to tag along to a concert. At that time, Lambert was more interested in country rock and was skeptical about the Grateful Dead because of its logo — the iconic red, white and blue lighting bolt "Steal Your Face" (aka "Stealie") skull.

"I had this idea that the Dead was somehow creepy because, honestly, the skull logo scared me," Lambert said.

At the concert, she realized there wasn't anything to be afraid of.

"A bunch of us ended up going to the concert," Lambert said. "I remember seeing the Stealie up on the TV screen, and it was three-dimensional, and along with the music, I remember being swept up in the energy from the inside. I was very moved, and it was very fun. It was like this pagan adventure."

Lambert added: "The Dead is like...they've tapped into something from their own experiences, and playing together...they've tapped into some energy of the universe that they take everybody along with when they play. Which is why it affects everyone that it does, like this happy stream of infinite joy."

As the years went by, Lambert slowly fell out of tune with the Dead and stopped following the band as she became an adult.

"Life just kind of fell flat for me," Lambert said.

The Dead and Company made its long-awaited return to Folsom Field in 2016 in an event that brought live music back to CU's football stadium after a 15-year hiatus. Grateful Dead originally played at Folsom in 1972 and again in 1980. In 2016, Lambert happened to get tickets to the show and was reminded of that first night in the early '80s when she fell in love with the band.

"I went to that first Dead and Company concert with my brother and his girlfriend, and I remember being like, 'Hello again!'" Lambert said. "To them, it was like another day at a concert, but for me, I felt like I got back in it. I felt so reinvigorated by that. It flavored my life with that kind of juiciness again. I started having fun again ever since then."

Now, Lambert tries to get as up close and personal with the band as she possibly can, soaking in all of the years she missed while her inner Deadhead slumbered.

"I've been at all different places in the stadium, but up at the very front with the band on the rail is where all of the energy is," Lambert said.

In the past couple of weeks, Lambert said she has been swimming hard, training for the moment that the gates open to Folsom, and she has to run across the football field to try and make it to the barricade.

"I've been super athletic these past few weeks and one of the reasons is because, like, I need to be in shape for that run," she said, with a laugh.

Jokes aside, Lambert said she is emotional at the thought of the Dead walking off of the stage for good.

"I haven't fully wanted to face that this might be the end," Lambert said. "Being at a Dead show is the most fun that I can have. I feel like it connects me, and other people, to life force, and that's what I think I'm going to miss when this tour is over."

The Final Tour

What: Dead and Company's farewell tour

When: 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Sunday and Monday

Where: Folsom Field at University of Colorado, 2400 Colorado Ave., Boulder

Why: Dead and Company bassist Oteil Burbridge, formerly of the Allman Brothers, told the paper in 2016 that "this is like the coolest cult I've ever seen. It's built on a lack of rules — other than be kind. You're free to do your own thing."

Burbridge added: "Part of it is like a religion and part is a rebellion. I've never seen anything like it, I really haven't. It's really quite unique. And I love it. I love it."

Unofficial Shakedown: The unofficial Shakedown Street, dubbed Boulder Market, will pack in a bunch of artisan vendors where Deadheads can find tie-dye for days, artisan jewelry and all the (unofficial) merch they need; 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; Boulder High School, 1604 Arapahoe Ave, Boulder; bouldermarket.com.

Official site: deadandcompany.com

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BOULDER CO-June 17:Tom Padgett, of Houston, ...

Tom Padgett, of Houston, waits outside Folsom Field before the gates open for the Dead & Company concert on June 17, 2022 at Folsom Field. (Cliff Grassmick/Staff Photographer)

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Travis Blumenthal and Vera Farina, dressed as dancing bears at...

Daily Camera file photo

Travis Blumenthal and Vera Farina, dressed as dancing bears at the Dead & Company concert in Boulder in 2016. (File photo)

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Harry Perry plays the guitar in 2018 as he walks...

Jeremy Papasso / Staff Photographer

Harry Perry plays the guitar in 2018 as he walks around the vendor area before the Dead and Company concert at Folsom Field. (File photo)

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Quazi, last name not given, walks towards the crowds outside...

Jeremy Papasso / Staff Photographer

Quazi, last name not given, walks towards the crowds outside of Folsom Field before the Dead & Company concert on the University of Colorado campus in 2018 in Boulder. (File photo)

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John T., at left, tries out the LSD Simulator under...

John T., at left, tries out the LSD Simulator under the supervision of Inventor Kelly Green during the Dead and Company concert in 2019 at Folsom Field. (File photo)

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