Talk about saving the best for last. 

My final Dead & Company concert – and favorite of them all – came June 27 at Indiana’s Rouff (pronounced “Deer Creek”) Music Center, which was rammed full of Heads saying fare thee well to the latest, and presumably last, Grateful Dead spinoff. 

And the band turned in a just-exactly-perfect show that featured chestnuts, surprises and high energy across two sets that clocked in at 80 and 110 minutes, respectively, in thick air weighed down by smoke from the Canadian wildfires. 

They came out of the gate hot, pairing “Bertha” with “Good Lovin’,” and making clear this wasn’t an evening for messing around or taking things easy. 

After John Mayer sung “It Must Have Been the Roses” – it had been soundchecked – the band lit into a raging “Big River” that found Bob Weir singing “’til I die” over and over before switching to the second verse of “Dark Star” as his bandmates continued to play “Big River.” An exhilarating surprise. 

Next, Mayer infused “Next Time You See Me” with blues-rock authenticity before he and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti engaged in two rounds of intense, trade-off soloing. Mayer’s second solo eventually dropped in to “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodleoo,” a transition so demanding, the guitarist smiled with relief when it worked. 

A deep-space “Bird Song” filled the role usually occupied by “Dark Star” and then – in a flashback to 364 days earlier at the Creek – Dead & Company closed the first half with a “Don’t Ease Me In” so euphoric Mayer bounced on stage with as much enthusiasm as fans in the pit and on the lawn. 

The energy remained high as drummers Mickey Hart and Jay Lane pounded out the rhythm to “Iko Iko” to begin set No. 2. 

Mayer then lit into a “Sugaree” that surely won over any remaining naysayers as he fanned his guitar with such ferocity, the final solo seemed to shift the ground as the audience went deliriously berserk. 

Similarly electrifying renditions of the warhorses “China Cat Sunflower” -> “I Know You Rider” and “Uncle John’s Band” subsequently helped the audience to briefly recreate the days of the Father Band before the music slithered into a killer “Drums” duet between Hart and bassist Oteil Burbridge that found Hart’s Beam rattling chests. 

The subsequent, full-band “Space” was uncharacteristically musical and found Chimenti answering Mayer’s chirping guitar with acoustic piano before the band built toward an explosive “Hell in a Bucket” and the home stretch where Weir led a call-and-response “(Turn on Your) Lovelight” before the night – and my Dead & Company career – ended with “Touch of Grey.” 

What a short, totally weird – I mean, who would’ve thought John Mayer was Dead? – trip it was.