Grateful Dead Members & John Mayer Team With Brett Ratner For Next AMEX Unstaged, With 10k Free Tickets
Three surviving members of the Grateful Dead — Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann — are about to head out on tour with John Mayer under the name Dead & Company. (They’re not using the Grateful Dead name because Phil Lesh is not taking part and because they played those big Fare Thee Well shows in Chicago just this past summer.) The show is coming to New York’s Madison Square Garden 11/7, and now ABC News reports that the band is giving away 10,000 free tickets to the show. This isn’t some huge altruistic measure; American Express will be filming the show to stream live as part of its American Express Unstaged series, so the company is presumably underwriting it. Rush Hour director Brett Ratner will direct the livestream, and 5,000 fans will have a chance to win two tickets apiece. Weir tells the Associated Press, “People who want to hear the music get to hear it for free and we get to promote our music and share it with people.” From now until Thursday, you can enter to win those tickets on the Dead & Company website.