Why Dead & Company show at SPAC got canceled

The Dead & Company canceled Wednesday their performance at Saratoga Performing Arts Center due to a medical emergency suffered by the father of singer-guitarist John Mayer. The cancelation came just hours before showtime.

The group, which includes many of the surviving members of the iconic jam band The Grateful Dead as well as younger performers, said the show was being canceled due to “unforeseen circumstances.”

In an Instagram story, Mayer wrote about his father Richard Mayer’s health condition.

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“This morning, my father suffered a medical emergency and was and was transported to the ER where he received much-needed and great care,” the 44-year-old wrote.

Mayer said he wouldn’t be performing with Dead & Company as originally planned.  

“He is now fairly stable,” he continued. “And will continue to undergo some procedures, but as you can understand, I have to stay in NYC and can’t play tonight’s show in Saratoga Springs.”  

According to the announcement by the band, tickets will be refunded automatically at the original point of purchase. The remaining Dead & Company tour dates — including a Friday show in Virginia — are unaffected.

No other detail about Mayer’s father’s health has been revealed.

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Last year, Mayer said that he made his return to New York City for the first time in over a year, following the COVID-19 pandemic, to visit his father.  

“I came because I have not seen my dad since over a year ago,” he told friend Andy Cohen during episode of his radio show. “And he got vaccinated and so as soon as he got that — week after the second dose — I was on a plane out to see him. He’s 93, so I mean, there’s no good year to lose to the pandemic. When you’re in your 90s, the years become more valuable.”

He continued, “So the fact that I didn’t see him for a whole year, I gotta say, I am the luckiest human being that my dad was in an assisted living home in New York City during the pandemic, literally survived. I mean it’s not dramatic to say he survived. And I know how many people can’t say that, so the value of that and the luck of that. So it is just pure lottery luck that my dad literally survived, and it was a very heavy thing to see him again and know that at 93, we lost a year but he’s still here.”