Photo Gallery: Dead & Company • Wrigley Field • Chicago
Dead & Co.
Wrigley Field
Chicago, IL
June 24, 2022
Recap and photos by Curt Baran
“Let us put men and women together/See which one is smarter/Some say men/I say no/Women run the men like a puppet show.” It wasn’t a mystery as to why those were the words Bob Weir chose to sing during Dead & Company’s first of two nights at Chicago’s Wrigley Field. The pall of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn abortion rights earlier in the day crept through the scene like a silent, societal hangover. Weir was in no mood to let it go unnoticed. It was a subtle gesture to use a cover of Harry Belafonte’s “Man Smart,” as a nod to an I-remember-where-I-was-when-it-happened moment.
Moving forward, his disdain would eventually become more obvious. Summertime, and what now remains of the Grateful Dead, were once synonymous with our city sucking the marrow out of the season that takes forever to arrive and seems to disappear in an eye blink. For the majority of the evening, they were indeed the distracting tonic, a reminder of how good we are at celebrating the Solstice.
During “Throwing Stones,” arguably The Dead’s most implicit, political compositions, Weir emoted, “the future’s here/we are it/we are on our own,” then, with a pregnant pause exclaimed, “especially because of this Supreme Court!” The message and the focus would eventually circle back to the music and the songs, the reason the people came in the first place.
And in the warm hug of the Friendly Confines, under the stars of a majestic, Midwest evening, the kids danced and shook their bones, briefly escaping a world whose rotation around them seemed to be slowly creeping in reverse.
Category: Featured
