Company men not only outnumber their Dead brethren on Dead & Company’s Final Tour, they also dominate the music, as the band’s June 13 gig in Cincinnati made clear. 

There’s bassist Oteil Burbridge, laying down thick, thumping grooves and willing a quickened tempo into the back half of the show-opening “The Music Never Stopped.”

Now, here comes guitarist and singer John Mayer, breathing 21st-century life into such Pigpen-era chestnuts as “Next Time You See Me” and “Viola Lee Blues,” which occupied the No. 2 slots in sets one and two, respectively, and were among the three-plus-hour, sold-out show’s many rain-soaked highlights. Virtuosic keyboardist Jeff Chimenti, meanwhile, joins Mayer as half of Dead & Company’s corps of soloists and the pair engaged in an electrifying conversation in “Viola” as Chimenti, on electric piano, answered Mayer’s calling guitar in a jam that seemed to briefly lift the Riverbed Music Center off the ground and recalled the late-1980s fireworks between one Jerry Garcia and a chap called Brent Mydland.

Speaking of Garcia and Mydland, there’s Burbridge again, singing the “Hey Jude Coda” out of “Dear Mr. Fantasy” essentially solo and making it shine. 

Joining longtime Dead man Mickey Hart behind the array of drums is the Company’s newest hire, Jay Lane, who replaced prodigal Rhythm Devil Bill Kreutzmann and added some youthful punch to the drums while he and Hart celebrated the late sound man and LSD alchemist Owsley “Bear” Stanley with T-shirts in his honor.

Kreutzmann’s unexpected departure left Bob Weir as Dead & Company’s last remaining OG – original Grateful – and he stepped up, singing songs associated with Garcia (the first-set-closing “Aiko Aiko”) and himself on the weather-appropriate “Looks Like Rain.” High in the mix, Weir’s unique style of rhythm guitar continually evoked the father band even as Mayer and Chimenti gleefully took command of pieces like the 1970s arrangement of “Here Comes Sunshine” – ironic in the rain – and an “I Know You Rider” that seemed destined last forever as more than an hour passed before Hart and Lane headed to the “Drums.”

A new arrangement of “The Wheel” rolled out of “Space” and showcased a calypso jam in place of the reggae workout of the past several years, proving Dead & Company plan to evolve to the last.

And lest anyone still doubt Mayer’s ability to burrow into this music, he took ownership of the set-closing “Casey Jones,” singing with confidence and writing his own guitar solo on the spot to add some serious sparkle to one of the Grateful Dead songbook’s most-static pages.

Dead & Company’s final Riverbed appearance was likely Weir and Hart’s last gig at the venue the Grateful Dead first played in 1985 and, soggy weather notwithstanding, a joyful fare thee well for those hopping off the bus at this stop.