Co-manager of the band at concerts in Las Vegas

Certainly many Deadheads attended several performances of Dead & Company's 30-day residency at Las Vegas' Sphere last spring and summer. However, it is unlikely that many of them attended more than Bernie Cahill.

Cahill, who is a partner at Activist Artists Management Dead & Company together with Irving Azoff and Steve Moir – saw 20 Dead Forever concerts at the stunning $2.3 billion venue, and from his box seat had a flawless view of the band as they seemed to lift off from the former Grateful Dead building in San Francisco's Haight Ashbury neighborhood and hurtle into the depths of space.

“It was definitely a work in progress,” says Cahill Billboard. “We were adding new content up until last weekend. We feel like we made a promise to fans to continue to evolve and deliver on the show, and we did that.”

This made Dead & Company the third band to perform at the Sphere, after U2 opened the venue last September and Phish played three nights last April. Dead Forever grossed $121.5 million and sold 429,000 tickets at 27 shows from May 16 to August 3, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore.

Here, Cahill talks about helping break through the state-of-the-art venue, bringing the Deadheads to Vegas, and why they'd probably do it again if asked.

Did you feel like you learned something during your stay and if so, what were those lessons?

When you go into that room and deal with sound and some of the fundamentals of unamplified sound on stage, you learn a lot. Irving had obviously just been through that with U2, so we definitely had a head start and were lucky that U2 shared so much institutional knowledge with us.

But until you get in that space, you just don't know what to expect, so it was a constant evolution. Every night we were learning about the space, the tone, the content. Sometimes we saw new content that immediately caught our eye and was remarkable, and sometimes it didn't always work exactly the way we thought it would. That's just part of the process of this new medium and this new canvas.

I imagine that at the end your performance feels really complete because you've developed it over all these shows.

I think the guys were inspired too. They found a new gear at Sphere. Maybe it's partly the residency, partly the challenge of doing something new. I think that was huge for them. You've been doing this for a particularly long time bob [Weir] And Mickey [Hart] and I think they were really excited about the challenge. They threw themselves into all the parts without ever losing sight of the songs. They just did it. After the last tour I thought the band couldn't get much better and better and they did it.

Do you think they reached a higher level because they had to compete with this amazing thing they were in?

Yes, there's a lot of that. But they were also looking for ways to make their visual narrative and their music complementary. Given that immersive experience that surrounds you when you're on stage, they probably felt – and you can tell – that they needed to take it to another level musically, and they did. I think the space invites that.

Were there any unforeseen challenges during your stay?

Many. [Laughs] I think some of the bigger ones were just things Derek Featherstoneour tour director and front-of-house engineer, had to manage this, which meant we had less rehearsals than we probably would have liked. When we got to the show [Darren] Aronofsky film [during the daytime]for example, and we can't do a full technical run through of new content, that can be a little bit scary and off the grid. But I think what we see in our detailed understanding of the show and then the fan experience is that they didn't feel any of those feelings of stress or worry.

Did you find that fans kept coming back, or was it more of a one-time experience for people?

Definitely repeat. There were so many repeats and I think people were really pleased that they were doing more than just one show or more than just one weekend. We had people seeing shows every weekend. Most people saw at least two or three shows. That's kind of the magic of this band and this community. You know Bob and John at least [Mayer] will tell a story over the weekend and will not repeat any songs. This story will unfold on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, almost like a three-act play. Our congregation really liked that.

With that in mind, what advice would you give to a manager whose team is about to play the Sphere?

Well, first of all, you should learn as much as you can from people like U2, Dead & Co. and Phish who have made it. We are an open book and share what we can. We have made mistakes and learned a lot and we are happy to share that with other artists who come after us.

Being a band that has always used visuals as an important part of our history has helped us a lot. It was natural for us to explore that and go much deeper at Sphere. I think bands that come after us and have those visuals as part of their history and their brand will have an easier time creating their show. My advice would just be to start as soon as you can and not stop pushing the boundaries. Keep at it and keep exploring and experimenting throughout your career.

The venue also really makes sense for a band with such a long and rich history, as the show is built around it so effectively visually. This is obviously not something a newer band can really do.

Right. We can draw from this very rich palette and in this venue it really worked. Yeah, there were the crazy moments where it felt very three-dimensional and like you were hurtling through space. Then there were the analogue moments and, I think, important emotional moments where the band just connected, whether it was Bob standing on the moon or the ballads that had everyone whispering. I think the other advice would be to find that balance between those emotional, analogue-feeling moments and then play with the technology and see how big you can be.

It was touching to reflect on Bob Weir's life and where he and Mickey came from and that they are now practically playing in a spaceship.

Yeah, exactly. But it's very Bob Weir, by the way, if you know him. He loves technology. They're all real techies. They love it. I think they love anything that allows them to go deeper into their stories and explore this music. That's a gift for these artists and I think it's a big part of why The Sphere worked so well and was so successful.

Would you try again?

I think they've all said in interviews they've done since then that they would definitely accept an invitation and would love to come back and do some things. Bob really wants to get into the idea of ​​being able to affect the visuals in real time and sync them more with the music itself.

But there were already some interesting things happening in that room that I don't know if people even noticed. [One night] There was a full moon outside and we broadcast the real full moon live into the sphere. That wasn't a video. That was Weir's idea.

If you were to do another residency, would you change anything?

Jim Dolanyou really have to give him credit. He has done it with this venue, which is impeccable in almost every way, from the backstage area, where we all spent most of our time, to the foyer. Maybe [it would be] have a little more time to rehearse, more technical rehearsals, just feel comfortable in the sphere because it is unique. It is the only one in the world.

I'm curious how everyone has fared, not just in one place, but in one city, and during an extremely hot summer period, too. How has everyone handled this seemingly universally intense scenario?

Different band members dealt with it differently, but I think the best solution was to stay in Vegas, rent a house rather than live in a casino, and make the most of this pretty nice place that's just outside of the city with the mountains in the background.

The stay itself was great because Vegas is dry and hot, but it's still better than being on trains, planes and cars and what that does to your body when you're on a fixed-route tour and going to a new city every day. The stay was great. The band loved it. The crew loved it. The reviews of Vegas were much better than we thought. The food scene there is, of course, incredible and there's a lot to love. If you like being outdoors, there's a lot to do in and around Vegas.

Was there anything remarkable for you about this strange juxtaposition of Deadheads in Vegas?

Absolutely. It's so funny that you mention that because yeah, it's like any other time you go to Vegas, you don't see a lot of tie-dye. There's a long history, of course, especially with Grateful Dead in Vegas. But what maybe didn't feel perfect for Deadheads in the community ended up being really quite wonderful.

My partner, Red Gerberdid a pop-up at the Venetian. It was incredible. It had a built-in cinema and lounge. We probably brought 4,000 or 5,000 people a day through the pop-up, and they hung out there. When I saw those Deadheads, whether at the pop-up, at the Sphere, or just walking around Vegas, it all made sense after a while. Really. As weird as it sounds to say that about Vegas, it felt like home.