Throughout Useless & Firm’s current run of 30 shows at Las Vegas’ Sphere, no one is wielding the power of speech on stage. As is typical of spin-off group Grateful Useless, the music does the talking for three and a half hours – with extra non-verbal support from the world’s most superior live performance video design on the dome’s immersive screen. While their participation makes it seem like the musicians are enjoying the experience as much as the entire houses each weekend, the band members haven’t yet focused on what they want to do. the revolutionary place… until now. And as you might expect or expect, everyone is optimistic about participating in this particular china shop.
Grateful Useless co-founder Bob Weir and Useless & Firm co-lead singer John Mayer spoke with Selection a month into their nearly three-month engagement to share how they’re feeling about their unique blend of music and spectacular visuals. Our conversation with Weir is below, to be followed soon by a conversation with Mayer. (We’ve already spoken with co-founding drummer Mickey Hart; read the previous interview here.)
Other musicians may be avoiding the rave reviews from critics and Deadheads for the residency, which was recently extended until August 10. But Weir put a lot of focus in our conversation on how he thinks there’s still room for progress—and fairly rapid progress—in today’s use of specialized knowledge. Does this mean that Useless & Company, who have already done a farewell tour, will not be able to participate when this commitment is completed? In our interview with Mayer, he said that this hadn’t really been mentioned, but although Weir seemed extremely optimistic, he in turn said that he “wouldn’t be surprised if we were invited back” – and that he’s ready for it, especially if there’s space to further advance audiovisual marriage.
From a box office and also important point of view, “Useless & Firm: Expensive Endlessly – Stay at Sphere” was a success. For the first weekend, May 16–18, the group reported box office grosses of US$13,406,000, with 50,275 tickets purchased over the first three nights. General, his camp says, reveals that it averages about 16,000 customers per night, which is pretty close to capacity, and has generated an average nightly revenue of about $4 million. Even a conservative estimate for the race would put it at more than $100 million for these dates. It doesn’t hurt, of course, that true fans want to see as many shows as possible, with wildly different setlists every night – and some different visuals rotating in and out too – unlike U2’s initial residency, which stuck close to a normal script. .
The following Q&A has barely been edited for size and readability. In it, Weir addresses some points that will interest fans, including whether footage of the Sphere’s execution is more likely to be released, as has been the case on previous Dead & Company shows.
After the farewell tour ended, did you think that any kind of residency offers that came your way would be something to consider, since you still enjoy performing? Or was it the fact that it was Sphere and a whole new A/V experience that was the inflection point for you?
It was each one, actually. I think the last summer tour, we loved being on it, and then (a residency) was kind of left in the wind. And on top of that, Sphere and the storytelling you can do from it made it incredibly engaging.
Do you see what’s happening now with the Sphere residence as part of a continuum with the Dead story, as there have been significant visible elements over the decades? Or do you consider this an entirely separate chapter?
Again, both. I mean, working on the Esfera stage is like an opera. The ease of telling stories has passed over anything. Every artist from any tribe is, at the beginning, a storyteller. And you won’t find this anywhere else now. The story told in visuals is tangentially connected to the story we tell on stage. And from what I can, from what I can gather, it’s quite satisfying for viewers.
As we work with these of us, we will try to engage more dynamically with each other. I think we’re just scratching the surface here.
What else do you think should be done if you continue from here?
The experience doesn’t yet exist for them to put the visuals completely in sync with the music (in a gigantic area)… This has to do with the drums. They’re usually a little late and all that kind of stuff. But there is audio experience that accompanies the music. And I think what we’re going to need to do is try to adapt some of that audio experience to the visual experience.
If you go back 50, 60 years to the Acid Reviews (Ken Kesey’s visionary events in San Francisco), when they had these overhead projectors and did gentle developing with clear glass plates and oils and all that kind of stuff, they would say that things dancing to the rhythm of the music. And I need to see if we can make this type of factor happen. And after that, now they have to load everything almost before the show, or they have to know what’s coming. I would like to see the association become much more flexible and interactive – and I believe that can happen if we try again.
As overwhelming as it was for people, are you still excited about the trends you can do to make it more spontaneous, with real-time types of changes and visual/artistic selections?
Yeah, I think that’s the next threshold for the next stage, for that experience. And I believe that then we will arrive at something more and better.
It sounds like you’re glad you did it and it’s paying off and it’s rewarding for you guys and for the viewers as well.
Yes. I must say we needed to work on it. The place is seven and a half acres of hard, parabolic, reflective surface, all centered directly on the stage, which means you get a slap on the back when you get to the stage that’s just as loud as what’s happening on stage. So we have to play with the headphones and we need to get used to them. These headphones are pretty important earplugs and you can’t hear anything around them – I mean, I’m deaf when I have them on and they’re not connected to anything. And so we have to try to avoid impacting our microphones no matter what. …And we executed quite adequately. It took a while, but we thought it was worth putting in the elbow grease to make it work for the public, because that’s what we’re here for.
So do you think this is something you can do again, like, say, come back next year?
Probably. I wouldn’t be surprised if we were invited again and I will certainly make room for it.
As you guys are making setlists now, is there a lot of time spent thinking about what songs might correlate with a certain look that should return in the show?
Oh, imagine me, there is! Clear.
Because it doesn’t always feel like they’re especially bonded. But at certain times, as in the case where Western movie footage appears as credits read “Bobby Weir as Ace,” there often seems to be an applicable choice for it.
Oh yes of course. But, you know, I can imagine having a color-coded record in front of me. When John (Mayer) is singing the song, it was a variety like the way Jerry (Garcia) and I used to do it. While he was singing, I was playing, of course, but I was also busy and excited about what I was going to do next. I had that song to decide what I was going to do next. And when I was singing, he had that song to decide what he was going to do next. I can imagine the experience building up to the point – and it is growing quickly – so that the next time we have the opportunity to play in that place, it’s on stage the place, while John is singing a song, I can figure out what I’m going to do. the next one, make that decision, and I’ll have a list of color-coded songs and we’ll have a list of background content backdrops that I can choose from. First, there’s a color-coded song list, starting with what’s on rotation, which is kind of the way Jerry and I used to work, putting the whole show together, night after night…
So it seems like, at this point, you need to have things mapped out a little more than usual, to have the video group ready, but you can foresee it becoming more improvised in every aspect…
Now we are controlling the issues, getting to know the terrain, and we are going to think a little about combining applied sciences and things like that to get to the place that I believe we will get to. It’s going to take a lot of work, but I believe we’ll get there when we get to the next section.
Some of the visuals are very specific to the band or its history, with iconography from the past, whether mascots or recreations of the past and places you performed. The zoom-out from Haight Ashbury into the cosmos near the beginning of the show, and again at the end, is a highlight for many people. Is there something about the look that you like the most?
I like being outside. It makes me feel right at home!
One The thing about these shows is that you can close your eyes during the entire show and still get your money’s worth. With your eyes open, you might be getting double or three times your money’s worth. But these are revelations that people would still like to have audio recordings of, that people would hope to get from programs dead and gone in the past… even though there’s no way you can properly capture on video what’s actually happening in Sphere.
Well, you know, my take on this has been, at least so far, that the whole experience is the whole experience. And there is a possibility that we could offer a gift in VR, these glasses that you wear with headphones. We would try that, but I don’t foresee providing anything less than that. Because we are touching the monitor screens in front of us. We are participating in what we can see and we have all had many opportunities to observe these scenarios that are happening behind us and above us. We kind of know what we’re participating in and we’re participating in it. The overall experience may be lacking with no backdrop. So the only option is to provide it in these full formats.
Going forward, it sounds like you’re really curious about how the experience might progress towards a return to the Sphere. Does it seem like this might have the potential to spoil you for something more typical? Could you think about making an extra conventional residence too? There was speculation, anyway, about what the band might do to celebrate the Dead’s 60th anniversary.th birthday.
We will accept it as it comes. Right now, literally all I can think about is who I am right now. … You know, it might be fun to do a residency — another kind of residency — just to keep our momentum going. As a result of this band It is pleasant to play with; there is no way to avoid this. Let’s just see what happens.