Known for his musical blend of rock, pop, and blues, Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter John Mayer, who also plays guitar for the rock group Dead & Company, remains committed to closing out the band’s residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas after sustaining a finger injury last month.
Mayer, 46, took to Instagram on Thursday to share a picture of his left index finger wrapped in a bandage, writing that he hurt his forefinger in a truck door on July 25.
The “Daughters” singer added that his finger was expected to “heal just fine,” but said he wouldn’t be able to use it for the foreseeable future.
“In the meantime, I have spent every day practicing guitar using the other three fingers and I think I have it sounding pretty good! I’ve always felt like every part of me belongs to these shows, and it’s my responsibility to return to the stage each night without screwing up the equipment,” he wrote.
Sphere Residency
Formed in 2015, Dead & Company is comprised of several former Grateful Dead members, including guitarist Bob Weir and percussionist Mickey Hart.
Grateful Dead drummer and founding member Bill Kreutzmann also played in the offshoot. However, he parted ways with Dead & Company in early 2023 due to a “shift in creative direction,” per a joint statement released via social media on April 22.
Mayer, who also serves as Dead & Company’s lead vocalist, was scheduled to perform with the band on Aug. 1 as part of the group’s extended “Dead Forever” residency at the Sphere—a music and entertainment arena at The Venetian Resort, perched on the Las Vegas Strip.
The band was originally only slated to perform 24 shows from May 16 through July 13, but the group later added six dates to its roster, scheduled for Aug. 1-3 and Aug. 8-10.
“I think what we all love is that there’s finally, once again, a live-music space race,” he said.
“There’s the social-media space race, the podcast space race, the AI [artificial intelligence] space race. But live music pretty much stayed the same for such a long time,” Mayer shared, adding that musicians now have the opportunity “to delight and surprise people more than they expected with this big, empty canvas and this really big palette.”
According to The Venetian’s website, the band’s shows make use of the $2.3 billion arena’s “next-generation technologies,” which include a concert-grade audio system and a 160,000-square-foot, wrap-around LED display for a “fully immersive visual environment.”
“When I think of the Grateful Dead canon, I almost think of the visual, aesthetic canon as much as I think of the music,” he explained.
“The Grateful Dead has always been interested in lighting, and making a show out of light. And when it comes to visuals, you have this incredible lookbook of visuals that you can draw from,” he added. “I think the Grateful Dead is probably the band with the most famous cache of visuals in music history, unless I’m really overlooking someone.”
Mayer, who has a home in Los Angeles, told the publication that he was able to help design the residency’s visuals due to his proximity to the MSG Sphere Studios in Burbank, located about 12 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. The facility serves as a production space where musicians and other entertainment figures can go to create content for the Las Vegas dome-shaped area.
In an Instagram post, shared on July 24, the day before he injured his finger, Mayer wrote that the Dead & Company’s Sphere residency was “unlike anything else” fans had ever seen.
