My Morning Jacket Embarks on a Grateful Dead-Inspired Residency at San Francisco’s Fillmore

Under a Sunday night sky in San Francisco, My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James revealed he had entered a deep Grateful Dead period following the passing of the band’s founder. “Ever since Bobby Weir passed away, a portal opened and I stepped through, into the land of the Grateful Dead. It’s such a beautiful place to be, and I spend quite a lot of time here!” he told Rolling Stone. The seven-night residency at the historic Fillmore was conceived as a celebration of that influence, uniting a generation of artists faithful to the Dead’s sound and spirit.

The residency, unveiled seven months prior with rainbow-themed artwork, scheduled seven shows color-coded to each hue of the spectrum, with back-to-back performances deliberately free of repeats. The series quickly became a narrative arc centered on the Grateful Dead, subtly and overtly weaving the band’s legacy into the venue’s storied walls and the surrounding Bay Area community. A message on My Morning Jacket’s socials encapsulated the intent: “We look forward to laughing, dancing, and singing together while celebrating every color of the rainbow and all of the beauty, diversity, and magic in this wild, wonderful world!”

Keyboardist Bo Koster explained that Jim’s personal connection to the Grateful Dead guided the setlist, noting, “Jim has been going through his ‘Grateful Dead moment’ recently, and feeling emotionally connected to the music.” The band selected one Dead song per night to honor the city’s cultural legacy, weaving in covers ranging from Sly Stone’s “Everyday People” and “Thank You” to Marvin Gaye’s “Baby Don’t You Do It,” and live classics from the Band and The Who, all recorded in San Francisco.

In a nod to Grateful Dead tradition, My Morning Jacket staged a two-night “Scarlet Begonias” and “Fire on the Mountain” sequence, recreating the iconic musical suite the Dead was known for. Throughout the run, covers were paired with special guests connected to the Jacket, the Dead, the Fillmore, or the city itself. The guest list featured Molly Tuttle, Tyler Ballgame, Karina Rykman, Mikaela Davis, Grace Cummings, and Grahame Lesh.

For Karina Rykman, it was her first time on the Fillmore stage, though she had seen Los Lobos there a decade prior. Flying in for a single night during a two-night break in her own tour, she joined My Morning Jacket for their debut of “Franklin’s Tower” and Radiohead’s “National Anthem.” Reflecting on the experience, she texted Rolling Stone from the road, “The history of the room is not lost on me.”

The Fillmore served as ground zero for the Grateful Dead, hosting 51 shows between 1965 and 1969, and it was there that drummers Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart first met during a Count Basie concert in 1967. My Morning Jacket has now added 18 shows of their own to the room’s history, further cementing its place in the legacy.

On the fifth night, dubbed Blue Night, the band performed the entire tracklist of their acclaimed live album Okonokos (Disc One), recorded at the Fillmore 26 years earlier. Among the audience was Grahame Lesh, son of Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh, who recalled, “It was a truly epic experience to see that show. I still have the poster and everything.”

To close the residency with a Grateful Dead-appropriate bookmark, My Morning Jacket brought Grahame Lesh onstage to play his father’s bass on “Sugar Magnolia” and George Harrison’s “Isn’t It a Pity.” Lesh returned for the encore to perform “Box of Rain,” while Jim James played the Martin acoustic guitar that Jerry Garcia used during the recording of American Beauty.

During the residency’s final two nights, James also brought out Garcia’s “Alligator” and Weir’s “Black Knife” guitars, but it was the American Beauty instrument that resonated most deeply. “It was so mind-melting to ‘Ripple’ for everyone on that guitar,” James said. “To hear all of us singing together, especially at the end of the song, and know it was that guitar that we hear every time we hear the studio recording was truly a transcendent moment for me, where I felt like I was just a vessel for the music to pass through.”

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