Dead & Co. tour hits TU Center Thursday

PHOTOGRAPHER: The Associated Press

From left, John Mayer, Bill Kreutzmann, Mickey Hart and Bob Weir talk with one another between interviews at a music studio in San Rafael, Calif., earlier this month. With the addition of Mayer, the newly formed Dead & Company begins its fall tour toni...

Some Grateful Dead survivors didn’t mean “Fare Thee Well” forever when they played July 3, 4 and 5 at Soldier Field in Chicago. Call that The Goodbye That Failed, because Dead & Company play tonight at the Times Union Center (51 S. Pearl St., Albany).

This time, it’s longtime members guitarist Bob Weir and drummers Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart (who joined in 1967, two years after Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions became the Grateful Dead, left from 1971 to 1974, then rejoined for the rest of the jam) — plus guitarist John Mayer, bassist Oteil Burbridge and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti.

This latest re-branding follows Grateful Dead variations the Other Ones, the Dead and Furthur; plus Weir’s RatDog and Phil Lesh & Friends and numerous one-off gigs.

“Fare Thee Well” came 20 years after guitarist-singer-bearded-face of-the-band Jerry Garcia played the last Grateful Dead show: July 9, 1995, also at Soldier Field. This came not long after his last local show — of 13 at the Knickerbocker Arena/Pepsi Arena/Times Union Center, from March 1990 to June 1995. Backstage, sitting on an amp case with bassist Mike Gordon from Phish before that last show, we watched Garcia walking toward the stage with a guy even hairier than he was, in a good mood but looking fragile, unwell.

Garcia died on Aug. 9, 1995, a week before he’d have turned 53. Even the Grateful Dead’s youngest original member, Bob Weir who turned 68 on Oct. 16, is way older now than Garcia lasted. More symmetry: Weir has the same birthday as John Mayer, who’s 30 years younger and was born the year (1977) the Grateful Dead released “Terrapin Station.”

EMERGING TALENT

Over time, and tabloid over-exposure, Mayer has emerged as a more serious musician than his early pop records suggested. He toured with jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, including at Bonnaroo; and has collaborated with Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy (coming to The Egg on Nov. 11), John Scofield, B.B. King and Kanye West. The John Mayer Trio with bassist Pino Palladino and drummer Steve Jordan jammed for real.

So does bassist Oteil Burbridge, born in 1964, a year before the Grateful Dead debuted as Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions. Burbridge ably anchored the Allman Brothers band from 1997 to the end in 2014, after co-founding and playing in the anarchic jam crew Aquarium Rescue Unit.

The ARU also featured guitarist Jimmy Herring, who played with the Dead, Frogwings (with just about every other top jam-ster in sight) and Jazz is Dead, and who now plays with Widespread Panic (but I digress).

Keyboardist Jeff Chimenti, born in 1968, when the Grateful Dead made its most sonically ambitious albums “Anthem of the Sun” and “Aoxomoxoa,” played with Weir’s RatDog and the re-branded, post-Garcia Dead survivors’ bands the Dead and Furthur, plus Phil Lesh & Friends — after playing in Les Claypool’s Frog Brigade, En Vogue, and Dave Ellis’ jazz band.

Dead & Company play tonight at the Times Union Center at 7 p.m., doors open at 6. $96, $72, $47. 800-745-3000 www.timesunioncenter-albany.com.

MORE JAMS TONIGHT

Vermonter Grace Potter has played with or before just about every improv band that’s played here over the past decade: opening for the Trey Anastasio Band at the Palace and for two nights of the Dave Matthews Band at SPAC, for example — plus jamming with moe. and Gov’t Mule at Bonnaroo. Tonight, at the other end of Pearl Street from the Times Union Center, Potter headlines at the Palace (19 N. Pearl St. at Clinton Ave., Albany). Rayland Baxter opens at 8 p.m.

Baxter plays on Potter’s recent debut solo album “Midnight,” along with members of her band the Nocturnals, plus stars of the Flaming Lips, Fitz & the Tantrums and Queens of the Stone Age. 8 p.m. $48 and $38 465-3334 www.palacealbany.com

Deadheads are welcome at the Low Beat (335 Central Ave., Albany) tonight when local tribute band Knot Dead plays an after-party at 10 p.m. Knot Dead is guitarists Evan Lewis and Mike Urbon, singer Nora Lamphere, drummers Sean Kanawada and Jason Vasquez, and bassist Dan Gerken. $5. 432-6572 www.thelowbeat.com

Reach Gazette columnist Michael Hochanadel at [email protected]