MusiCares Grateful Dead Tribute Is Big on Laughs (Thank You, Woody Harrelson), Love and Vibes

MusiCares Grateful Dead Tribute Lineup to Include Noah Kahan, Billy Strings, Maren Morris, More; Andy Cohen Set to Host Benefit Gala (Exclusive)

A hollow, lifeless conference hall at the Los Angeles Convention Center is just about the last place you would expect to find a Grateful Dead tribute concert on a Friday night. But it was there that MusiCares put on a show for the ages, honoring the band at its Persons of the Year gala with founding members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart in attendance (drummer Bill Kreutzmann could not make the trip and delivered a message by video) and a slew of acolytes who understood the assignment.

Typically, the MusiCares dinner is a polite affair, with guests seated respectfully for most of the performances, save the all-star finale, a staple of the event. And that’s not to say that previous Person of the Year recipients — which include Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney and Barbra Streisand — didn’t have their own rabid fanbases in attendance. But the Deadheads just do things differently. If there’s a spot to spin in, they will annex it; lax security, they’ll beeline for a better view; and, of course, audience participation is key and, gowns not withstanding, impassioned singalongs were very much on the menu.

The beauty of this Grammy weekend perennial is how genres and generations are able to come together and reinterpret classic, timeless songs, but it’s also about celebrating the music community that has supported these acts throughout the decades. And if ever there was a time to appreciate the Dead’s own lyrics — “We will get by; we will survive” — it’s this year in the wake of destructive wildfires that have consumed entire L.A.-area neighborhoods. MusiCares has pledged financial support for musicians and industry professionals in the form of its Los Angeles Fire Relief Effort. The night’s donation tally topped $9 million, it was revealed.

In an ambitious and well-choreographed run-of-show, 17 performances went off with minor hitches, all under the direction of veteran producer and musician Don Was. The night started with several multi-act combinations: The War and Treaty were joined by Mick Fleetwood and Stewart Copeland for “Samson And Delilah,” followed by My Morning Jacket and Maggie Rose doing “One More Saturday Night” and Zac Brown and Marcus King teaming up for “Bertha.”

Some solo sets followed: Wynonna Judd delivered “Ramble On Rose” with a hint of country; Norah Jones offered a faithful “Ripple”; and Noah Kahan joined Béla Fleck for “Friend Of The Devil.”

With the slower tempo songs out of the way, Vampire Weekend helped get the crowd on its feet for “Scarlet Begonias,” followed by Dwight Yoakam’s pulsing “Truckin’.” Maren Morris came next with “They Love Each Other,” and Lukas Nelson and Sierra Ferrell teamed for “It Must Have Been The Roses.”

Billy Strings’ “Wharf Rat” was divine, while the lesser known “Loose Lucy,” performed by Sammy Hagar, and “Standing On The Moon” by Bruce Hornsby with Rick Mitarotonda, offered the black-tied a moment to rest. (The invite suggested “colorful black tie” but noted “Grateful Dead attire is welcome.”)

Winding down the night was a standout performance of “Box of Rain” by The War on Drugs. Keeping with the fan favorites, John Mayer’s stripped-down interpretation of “Terrapin Station,” a multi-act opus recorded with a full orchestra for the 1977 album of the same name, was inspired in its intricate melodic math.

Asked earlier in the night by host Andy Cohen which Grateful Dead song is horniest, Mayer suggested “Looks Like Rain,” a Weir-penned ballad with the questionable lyric, “Did you ever waken to the sound of street cats making love?” Mayer also shared his “gateway” song to the Dead’s music, “Althea,” and not long after, he was on stage playing it alongside Dead & Company bandmates Weir, Hart, Oteil Burbridge, Jeff Chimenti and Jay Lane. “Sugar Magnolia” and “Touch of Grey” closed out the night with an all-star jam. By that point, most guests in the trade show-sized ballroom had converged in the front, thanking their lucky stars that they were able to see this lineup that close.

In between performances, the audience was treated to video vignettes of the Dead’s history, made all the more poignant after the October loss of bassist Phil Lesh at the age of 84. And this August marks 35 years since Jerry Garcia’s death at 53. To honor their memories, and to stand in for Kreutzmann, Trixie Garcia, Grahame Lesh and Justin Kreutzmann took the stage, flanked by Recording Academy president Harvey Mason jr., Amazon’s Steve Boom and MusiCares’ Laura Segura, for the band’s official acceptance as persons of the year.

But not before Woody Harrelson regaled the crowd with stories of his first hangs with Garcia — smoking pot in the vice president’s mansion on one occasion and doing mushrooms backstage before a show on another. For a fuzzy evening in the early 1990s, the actor sure had a crystal clear memory of all that transpired.

Some highlights: “Jerry says, ‘If the universe is extended, isn’t time expanding?’ The crowd increases its pitch, the mushrooms are kicking in, and I’m perspiring because I realized Jerry is supposed to be on stage right now. … And then Jerry goes, ‘I got a job.’ … I’m side stage with Bruce Schroed talking about Bush and how upset we are about what we’re doing in Iraq. I climb up and I hear this wild cacophony of discordant notes blasting through the speakers. This is when everything goes slow-mo. Jerry, Bobby and Bill all turned. In fact, the whole band is looking at me. And then I see the roadies running toward me. ‘You’re sitting on a live MIDI!’ Which, if you don’t know, is an electric keyboard. I was instantly persona non grata. But hey, you know, I jammed with the Dead.”

Harrelson went on to characterize Weir as “one of the most interesting, electric, spiritually deep people on the planet, and not a bad musician.”

That this laugh-out-loud introduction prefaced Weir’s own emotional acknowledgments of the difficulties of the road and the team it takes to keep the Dead legacy going (he shouted out managers Bernie Cahill, Kraig Fox, Activist’s Liz Norris and Rhino Records president Mark Pinkus, among others) made the night feel singularly special.

“Longevity was never a major concern of ours,” said Weir, eliciting a few chuckles from the crowd. “Lighting folks up and spreading joy through the music was all we really had in mind, and we got plenty of that done.”

Read Weir’s acceptance speech in its entirety below: