All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.

The first day of college marks the start of a new chapter in your life, and if you plan to live on-campus, your living quarters are changing drastically. While exciting, you’ll no longer be sleeping on the same mattress and will have to carefully choose what music posters you plan to decorate your minimal wall space with. Whether you’re a freshman, undergraduate or even graduate student, there are some dorm room essentials that you need to make sure you have by your move-in date.

Your dorm room will be more than just a place for you to sleep; it will act as a spot for hanging out with friends, studying and just lounging during your free time. That’s why it’s essential to create a space that’s both comfortable yet shows off your personality.

Back-to-school deals are currently going on, with everything from comfortable pillows, laptops and bedding discounted for a budget-friendly cost. You can take advantage of discounts and promos that’ll help you stock up on all the dorm room essentials. That way, you can kick off your first day of college feeling prepared and comfortable.

Keep reading to discover where to find dorm room supplies.

What Are the Best Dorm Room Essentials?

To help you stock up on the best dorm room essentials for college, ShopBillboard did the digging and created a list of must-haves to shop below.

If you’re looking to give your dorm room a funky flair that shows off your love of music, this portable record player from Victrola is for you. This record player is nestled in a vintage-inspired suitcase, making it easy to transport for our college students on the go. Amazon’s Victrola record player comes in a slew of colorways, although our favorite is Turquoise.

If you’re in the mood for music on the go, there’s nothing better than a portable speaker. From jamming out in your dorm to taking your tunes out on campus, this JBL Go 4 speaker can do it all, all for under $50. Don’t let the small size fool you. This portable speaker boasts major base and impactful sound. You’ve also got seven hours of playtime and Bluetooth compatibility for ease of use.

Everyone needs a good pair of headphones, especially college kids. JBL’s Tune 520BT Bluetooth Wireless On-Ear Headphones are affordable, easy to use and stylish, all things we think college students will appreciate in their music tech. The headphones boast JBL’s renowned Pure Bass sound and up to 57 hours of playtime. The Purple colorway is a stand-out for us, but the Black colorway is a versatile classic, too.

Your university-provided mattress is not going to be hotel-grade, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make it cozier. This mattress topper is a No. 1 best seller on Amazon for mattress toppers with more than 40,000 purchased this month, so far. The design comes with a 2-inch thickness for added cushioning as well as a gel material that’ll help relieve pressure and conform to your body’s curves.

Make laundry day easier with this multipurpose laundry bag that can transform into a backpack. It comes with a roomy interior that can hold up to 45 liters of laundry and has a drawstring top to keep your clothes and bedding secure. Another notable feature is the pocket for storing your laundry detergent.

Save space but keep your bedside must-haves close with this compact bedside table. The BedShelfie can snap onto your bed frame and features a flat surface with enough space to put your phone and tablet while the built-in cupholder lets you hold your nighttime glass of water.

Rather than accept the harsh florescent lighting of your dorm, this chic table lamp will provide a soft glow when you’re winding down for the night. It comes with a monochrome greenbase and matching shade that will certainly add some style to your space. If the green hue isn’t your thing, the mini lamp also comes in an alternate chrome base with a butter yellow shade.

For less than $70 you can get all the bedding you can possibly need. This five-piece bedding set from Amazon comes with a reversible comforter, pillowcases, a flat sheet and a fitted sheet to effortlessly give you a complete bed set. Each piece is a coordinating shade of gray.

Make room for all of your belongings by adding some bed risers to your bed. There are three heights to pick from and as an added bonus, these come with built-in outlets and USB plugs giving you additional spots to plug in your electronics.

Urban Outfitters’ tiger bath mat is ready be the statement piece of your bathroom. It comes in the shape of the animal and includes a soft and fluffy material that’ll swaddle your feet in comfort while absorbing water.

Incorporating a storage cart is essential for storing your knick-knacks and toiletries without leaving your desk looking cluttered. Target’s version is made from a metal material and a three-tier design making it small-space friendly. The included wheel also make it easy for moving it from place to place.

Rather than have your toiletries precariously stacked in your hands, this shower caddy will carry it all and more while leaving you with extra hand space. The mesh material is breathable and quick-drying while the perimeter features a variety of pockets for storing all your shower essentials.

Dry off with these plush waffle towels that are crisp and absorbent. The set is 20% off and comes with a total of eight towels including four washcloths, two hand towels and two large towels.

Elevate your dorm room with this stylish ottoman that comes with secret storage. The exterior shows off a soft teddy material that’s available in a variety of colors paired with a textural appearance. When you take the lid off, you’ll be met with empty space to put all your small belongings.

Cool down with this portable fan that’s both compact and on sale for 69% off. You can customize the speed and temperature using the buttons on the front. Other features include the ability to put a timer on as well as make it oscillate.

These under bed storage bags will help keep your closet from overflowing. Made with fabric and clear plastic materials, the storage bags come in a 4-pack that you can fill with clothes, towels and jackets. The clear edges will allow you to see exactly what’s inside while the built-in handle means you can easily pull out the bag when you’re looking for that one sweater.

Check out your OOTD before you head to class with the help of Target’s over the door mirror. The design comes in a range of frame colors to pick depending on your style preferences and includes two hooks to attach and hang over your door.

Complete your bedspread with a soft throw blanket like this luxe one from Quince. The style comes with a cozy knit texture made from a cotton material that’s breathable yet will keep you comfortable on cooler days.

Avoid having clothes fall onto the floor with this 100-pack of velvet hangars. The body comes with a soft velvety material that’ll help keep your tops, dresses and more apparel in place while the metal top can twist around to easily hang clothing in the direction you want.

Space is a luxury that not every dorm room is equipped with, which means you’ll need to get creative with your storage. This shoe organizer can be hung up in your closet and uses a fabric material that’s easy to fold and move to your liking. There are also 10 slots to store your shoes without leaving your space feeling cluttered.

For more product recommendations, check out ShopBillboard‘s roundups of the best wearable blankets, vinyl record player accessories and spring break travel gear.

Atlantic Music Group announced Monday (Aug. 4) a series of executive promotions across its senior leadership team, as well as its labels 300 Entertainment and 10K Projects. 

Marsha St. Hubert, who had been the executive vp/head of marketing for hip-hop, R&B and global music at Atlantic Records, has been named executive vp of Atlantic Music Group (AMG) and promoted to co-president of 10K Projects, which she will lead alongside existing co-president Nicholas Ziangas. St. Hubert, who has spent nearly two decades at Atlantic across two stints, will report to AMG CEO Elliot Grainge out of New York.

“Atlantic has been my label home for the better part of 20 years, and it’s always been a place where the artist reigns supreme,” St. Hubert said in a statement. “The independent spirit of 10K is very much in sync with the independent roots of Atlantic, and I want to thank Elliot for giving me the opportunity to expand my horizons as the company writes a new chapter in its amazing history.”

As part of the same announcement, Molly McLachlan, who had been co-president of 10K with Ziangas, has been promoted to executive vp of AMG as well, reporting to Grainge out of Los Angeles. McLachlan, who was the second employee at Grainge’s former indie label 10K, which was acquired by the Warner Music Group (WMG) in 2023, had worked across all of 10K’s releases since its 2018 founding.

“With two decades of hands-on experience, Marsha is one of the most knowledgeable, savvy, and engaging people in our industry,” Grainge said in a statement about St. Hubert’s new role. “She’s a passionate, magnetic music fan who knows the marketplace inside out, and has been the driving force behind the creation and execution of a stream of innovative strategies for new artists and superstars alike. Alongside another dynamo in Nico, I’m confident that together they’ll continue to propel both 10K and AMG’s success.”

Regarding McLachlan’s promotion, Grainge said, “Molly has been a foundational and integral leader at 10K, playing an important role in its launch and long term growth. As we evolve our senior management team at AMG, we remain agile, ambitious and collaborative about our vision for the future. Adding Molly to the AMG center helps us achieve this. She’s sharp, culturally attuned, and trusted for her sound judgment — whether navigating big-picture strategy or stepping into the details.”

Following St. Hubert’s promotion, longtime 300 Entertainment co-presidents Rayna Bass and Selim Bouab have been promoted to co-presidents of hip-hop, R&B and global music at Atlantic Records. The duo, who have each spent more than a decade at 300, will retain their titles at the label, which WMG acquired in 2021.

“At 300, we’ve always had an artist-first, independent mindset and an entrepreneurial spirit of hustle, grit and creativity,” Bass and Bouab said in a joint statement. “We’re looking forward to working closely with Elliot and bringing that same philosophy to our new posts — helping unlock even more potential in a label that’s already full of brilliance, passion and so much opportunity. We will continue our dedication and service to the culture that has birthed some of our biggest stars and raised some of our brightest executives.”

In addition, Lanre Gaba, who has also spent 20 years at Atlantic Records, has been promoted to executive vp of artist strategy and development at Atlantic Music Group. “I’m proud of everything we’ve achieved at Atlantic and the way we’ve supported artists and culture,” Gaba said in a statement. “It’s a privilege to continue carrying that mission forward and keep elevating powerful, meaningful music that makes a difference. A big thanks to Elliot and the team for this opportunity. The Hip-Hop, R&B, and Global team is in great hands with Selim and Rayna.”

“Rayna and Selim have been at 300 for over a decade, and they’ve done an incredible job, creating a unique artist-centric community that drives culture,” Grainge said in a statement. “They’re immersed in the tone and taste of what’s next, championing artists with a deep understanding of both how to fuel the creative process and energize fans. Their game-changing work at 300 makes them ideally suited to help take our strategy to exciting new places.”

Of Gaba, he continued, “Lanre brings her wide-ranging knowledge to the AMG center in a new role. Over her many years at Atlantic, she’s been a passionate artists’ advocate, insightful business leader, and team builder, and I know she will continue to carry those values forward in this new position.”

The new promotions come amid a continuing shift in the leadership at both Atlantic Music Group and the broader Warner Music Group, which just underwent layoffs again in the past week. Grainge, who took over as CEO of Atlantic last September, reorganized the division under his leadership with the AMG brand at its center, and Atlantic Records, 300 Entertainment and 10K Projects as subsidiaries.

All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.

The 2025 Festival season is slowly coming to a close. It’s time to stow away your booty shorts, bralettes and face glitter because we’re almost done with festivals for the year, excluding Outside Lands, Louder Than Life and Hard Summer. With Coachella, Stagecoach, Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo in the rearview, fans might be looking for something to help take a breather from the crowds, the heat and the copious glitter-based products.

In the spirit of self-care, we’re rounding up a few favorites to help you wind down, giving your body and mind a break from the festivities, at least for a little while. We’re talking skincare, haircare and bodycare products from top brands like Topicals, Lemme, Aquaphore, Vegamour and much more.

This six-pack of eye masks from Topicals will get your undereyes looking hydrated and brightened after all of the sleepless nights packing the perfect outfits for Coachella. These masks are formulated with Kojic Acid to brighten and a cooling agent for de-puffing. You’ll be looking bright and awake in no time.

This Peach & Lily sheet mask went absolutely viral on TikTok this past year, and we can see why. The two-part mask is impressively formulated with an entire 40g serum bottle, 2% ginseng extract, 9 peptides and 55k PPM vegan collagen complex that work to plump, hydrate and brighten. If your skin is looking dull post-festival, then this sheet mask is a must-have.

Crowds and concerts can be super stressful. Why not unwind with Lemme’s vegan Chill De-Stress gummies? Created by the one and only Kourtney Kardashian, the gummies are made with ashwagandha. This ingredient has been used in traditional Indian medicine for centuries, and while there are many things this key ingredient does, it is also an adaptogen, meaning it helps the body cope with stress.

When you’ve been walking around on the festival grounds all day, there’s nothing better for your feet than giving them a boost of hydration. Retailing for $5.89, this foot mask is formulated with a blend of avocado oil and shea butter that work together to condition the skin of your feet for a plush and moisturized feeling post-use.

If you’re a lover of massages, then you’ll love this Vegamour GRO Scalp Massager. Retailing for $18, this pointy tool can be used in the shower while you’re conditioning your hair to stimulate your scalp, promoting circulation, which in turn promotes hair growth. Plus, who doesn’t love a massage post-festival?

Minty fresh and full of benefits, this scalp serum from Divi is sure to banish that post-festival grime from your scalp for good. The product comes in an ergonomic dropper bottle for ease of use. The ingredient list is one to marvel at, with the likes of copper-tripeptide 1, rosemary and caffeine, which all work to stimulate hair follicles, promoting hair growth.

Festivals can wear the body out. All the walking and dancing can lead to soreness throughout the body. If you’re looking to work out a few kinks in your back, shoulders and neck post-festival, then this massage gun on Amazon might be a good fit. It currently retails for $26.99 and comes with multiple heads for different massaging possibilities.

Want that pedicure feeling without leaving your home? This Soap & Glory Heel Genius Moisturizing Foot Cream offers users salon-quality hydration for those post-festival dry and cracked feet. Including alpha hydroxy acids in its formula, this foot cream works as an exfoliant, leaving the feet smooth and ultra-soft. For best results, we’d recommend using this foot cream before bed, allowing the product to aptly sink into the skin.

Sony Music has filed a lawsuit against Napster over allegations that the streaming service owes more than $9 million in unpaid royalties — and has continued to illegally play the songs after Sony pulled the plug on their licensing deal.

Napster — not the infamous turn-of-the-century file-sharing site but the small streaming service once known as Rhapsody — was acquired in March by Infinite Reality, a digital media and e-commerce company, for $207 million.

But in a lawsuit filed Friday (Aug. 1) in Manhattan federal court, Sony accused the newly sold company of failing to pay its bills. The case claims Napster owed more than $9.2 million when Sony finally terminated its contract in June — but has kept on using the songs anyway.

“When companies exploit Sony Music’s sound recordings for commercial benefit without authorization, this not only harms Sony Music by depriving it of compensation, but it also reduces the incentive to invest in the creation and dissemination of new music,” the company’s lawyers write.

Despite Napster’s origins as an industry-shaking pirating service, the famous name has been reused for decades on a series of legal music services. Most recently, Rhapsody rebranded under the Napster name in 2016; it had a little more than 1 million monthly active users at the end of 2020, according to Music Ally.

Back in January, Billboard reported that Napster had been making late royalty payments to at least half a dozen distributors and record labels, sometimes by as much as a year. In June, SoundExchange filed another lawsuit against Napster over accusations of $3.4 million in unpaid royalties.

According to Sony’s new lawsuit on Friday, Napster has failed to pay royalties to the company for over a year. By March, Sony says Napster had racked up an unpaid royalty balance of $6,787,466 across four different licensing deals.

When Napster inked the Infinite Reality acquisition deal in March, the terms of Sony’s licensing agreement gave the music giant the right to terminate its licensing agreement with Napster entirely. But the company’s lawyers say Sony waived that right in exchange for a promise by Napster to finally pay the outstanding royalty balance.

According to Sony, Napster never did so — and on June 23, the label terminated the licensing deal, meaning the streaming service no longer had any legal right to play the company’s catalog. But the lawsuit says Napster never actually removed the music from its platform and is now simply committing wholesale copyright infringement.

“Despite the termination of all of defendants’ licenses to use any of Sony Music works, defendants have continued to use and exploit SME sound recordings and music videos,” the company’s lawyers wrote. “Sony Music has identified a sample of hundreds of sound recordings and music videos that were available through Napster.”

Friday’s case is very obviously not the first copyright battle for Napster. Shortly after Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker’s pioneering service took the country by storm in 1999, it was facing infringement lawsuits from various heavy-hitters, including Metallica, Dr. Dre and the RIAA. Those cases were quickly successful: a federal judge issued an injunction in 2001, effectively forcing Napster to shut down.

The following year, Bertelsmann announced that it would acquire the service and turn it into a licensed listening platform, but a bankruptcy judge later blocked the sale. In the years since, the Napster name has been bought by a series of owners: first by Roxio, then by Best Buy, and finally in 2011 by Rhapsody, an early music streaming service, which rebranded itself as Napster in 2016.

The lawsuit from Sony did not say how much it was seeking in damages. But under U.S. law, copyright owners can seek as much as $150,000 for every work infringed, meaning damages can quickly add up when hundreds or thousands of songs are in dispute.

A spokesperson for Napster did not immediately return a request for comment on Monday (Aug. 4).

Perhaps Daniel Lurie put it best. “What you have all brought to our city over the last week, and here, tonight,” started the San Francisco mayor to tens of thousands of Deadheads as he introduced Dead & Company on Saturday night in Golden Gate Park, “you’ve brought joy, you’ve brought energy, you’ve brought love – it’s just what San Francisco needed.”

Six decades since the Grateful Dead’s debut, Deadheads have become as much a part of the City by The Bay’s fabric as sourdough bread and cable cars. But Dead & Company’s three-night Golden Gate Park run celebrating 60 years of Grateful Dead music wasn’t just what San Francisco needed – it was a necessary and overdue opportunity for Deadheads to congregate in the city with which the Dead is forever linked. Because while Dead & Company’s 48 shows at Las Vegas’ Sphere over the last year and change have been a technological marvel – not to mention big business, with close to $200 million grossed, according to Billboard Boxscore – they’ve still deviated from the large-scale, often outdoors shows that have defined the Dead and its various offshoots for decades.

“There’s nothing like a Grateful Dead show,” one popular Deadhead refrain, reprinted on official event merch for these shows, goes – and that proved particularly true in Golden Gate Park this weekend. Plenty has changed since the Dead, living in the nearby Haight-Ashbury neighborhood in the late ‘60s, staged frequent pop-up shows throughout the park; back then, they didn’t have delay towers or massive video screens, much less Grasslands, the designated cannabis marketplace and consumption area at this weekend’s Another Planet Entertainment-produced event. But even so, the three-show run by Dead & Company – the performing outfit featuring Grateful Dead founding members Bobby Weir and Mickey Hart, joined by singer-guitarist John Mayer, bassist Oteil Burbridge, keyboardist Jeff Chimenti and drummer Jay Lane – felt like a cosmic realignment, an affirmation of the continued significance of the Dead’s roots to Weir, Hart and the broader Grateful Dead tribe.

At Golden Gate Park, that scene swelled. For most of its touring career since its 2015 formation, Dead & Company frequented stadiums, amphitheaters and arenas, which in turn relegated Shakedown Street, the traveling marketplace of merchants that follows the Dead from city to city, to those facilities’ soulless parking lots. In San Francisco, Shakedown was given prime real estate on the John F. Kennedy Promenade that runs through Golden Gate Park, with fans taking in the bazaar’s sights and sounds as they strolled the forest-lined road en route to the event gates.

Inside, the multi-generational crowd united old-timers, who may well have been at some of the Dead’s first Golden Gate Park gigs decades ago with kids and young adults catching live Grateful Dead music for the first time. And promoter Another Planet Entertainment, which will stage its Outside Lands festival at the same site Aug. 8-10, smartly integrated the Dead into every aspect of its infrastructure – from devoted space for Participation Row, the assortment of non-profits and charitable organizations it hosts at many of its shows, to selling Garcia Hand Picked, the cannabis line that bears Jerry Garcia’s name, and Dogfish Head’s new Grateful Dead Juicy Pale Ale (it always seemed to be out).

(For the second straight year, Outside Lands has secured permits for shows surrounding Outside Lands on the calendar that use its infrastructure; Zach Bryan plays Aug. 15, and considering the level of care the promoter exhibited with Dead & Company, it seems likely these APE-promoted Golden Gate Park concerts will continue.)

The weekend’s billing also reflected the Dead’s broad and ever-widening influence. While the Dead often played with openers, even late in its career, Dead & Company has generally eschewed support acts – but at Golden Gate Park, Billy Strings, Sturgill Simpson (under his Johnny Blue Skies moniker) and Trey Anastasio Band kicked off the music on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, respectively. Each reflected different threads of the Dead’s eclectic musical tapestry: Strings, the bluegrass, folk and psychedelic music that defined Garcia in the ‘60s; Simpson, the ripping country-rock that was became the Dead’s bread and butter in the ‘70s; and with Phish frontman Trey Anastasio, the loose, soulful side-project energy of the Jerry Garcia Band.

Each opener brought a no-nonsense attitude to his set – “We got 75 minutes, I’m not gonna waste another second of it talking,” Simpson told the audience as he took the stage on Saturday – efficiently running through what amounted to greatest-hits sets from their respective catalogs. And plenty of the Deadheads in attendance seemed to fall in love with each in real-time, from Strings busting out the Garcia-favored traditional tune “Shady Grove” to Simpson weaving in snippets of Rage Against the Machine’s “Bulls on Parade” and Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale” during his full-throttle set.

Anastasio provided the most poignant moment during the weekend’s opening sets. “I saw my first Dead show in 1981 at the New Haven Coliseum,” Anastasio said, “and fell in love with all of it. But I want to, at this moment, do a particularly heartfelt shoutout to Mr. Jerry Garcia, who we’re all here to celebrate. I look out at this crowd, and this guy came along, and here we all are all these years later.

“Wherever you are, standing up on your moon or whatever, Jerry, thank you for everything you gave us — it’s incomprehensible, the amount of joy,” Anastasio continued, before launching into a sublime and affecting rendition of “Mission in the Rain,” a song off Garcia’s third solo album and a Jerry Garcia Band staple.

But while the openers generated tremendous interest – despite music starting in the 4:00 p.m. hour each day, the grounds were packed when Strings, Sturgill and Anastasio began playing – it paled in comparison to the energy when Dead & Company took the stage. At first, the band didn’t quite reciprocate, as it shook off its non-Sphere-show cobwebs and adjusted to an outdoor gig with a larger audience and a drastically different audio-visual format. But by the time it closed its first set Friday with a rollicking version of Johnny Cash’s “Big River” and the fan favorite “Althea,” it had started to lock in; in the second set, “Playing in the Band” melted into a deep, dense jam that verged on jazz fusion as it segued into the mystical prog of Weir’s “Estimated Prophet.”

Grahame Lesh — the son of late Grateful Dead founding bassist Phil Lesh, who died in 2024 — joined Dead & Company on Mission Control, a classic Phil bass, for “Playing,” and returned to the stage with the band on both Saturday and Sunday for songs where his father played a particularly significant role. (Grahame also hosted the “Heart of Town” after-shows at San Francisco’s Pier 48 over the weekend, which featured a who’s who of esteemed players from the jam-band world.) The representation of Lesh made the absence of Grateful Dead founding member Bill Kreutzmann – who co-founded Dead & Company and played with it until 2022, and who, other than Weir and Hart, is the only surviving founding member of the Dead – that much more noticeable; “What an incredible gift that we can still all come together, even if we can’t all be there in person, for this special anniversary,” Kreutzmann wrote in a social media post thanking Deadheads on Monday.

With its wide-ranging impact, the Dead could have had any number of guests perform with it in Golden Gate Park. But by only inviting Lesh, and each of the show’s openers, to the stage, it acted with an admirable selectiveness and intentionality that elevated these sit-ins beyond the slapdash affairs such appearances at concerts often become. Each opener’s appearance with Dead & Company – Strings for Garcia’s stirring ballad “Wharf Rat,” Simpson for the apocalyptic folk of “Morning Dew,” Anastasio for the soaring pairing of “Scarlet Begonias” and “Fire on the Mountain” – was a standout moment from its respective show, and a bucket-list-level happening for the jam-band fans in attendance. Strings, who normally shreds on acoustic guitar, switched to electric for a towering “Wharf Rat” performance, while Simpson pushed “Morning Dew” in subtly exploratory directions – and elicited some of Weir’s sharpest rhythm guitar of the weekend.

And Anastasio, who filled Garcia’s lead guitar role when Weir, Hart, Lesh and Kreutzmann played five 50th anniversary shows together in 2015, helped Dead & Company take “Scarlet” > “Fire” to new heights to begin the band’s second set on the run’s final night. The Phish frontman’s improvisation pushed Mayer’s own soloing in unusual ways for a sterling rendition of the classic combo that honored its history while building on it.

Because while Dead & Company is the most popular purveyor of Grateful Dead music today, it’s more than (as some detractors like to call it) a “Grateful Dead cover band.” Mayer can deliver rousing renditions of classic Dead rockers like “Bertha” and “Deal” with one hand behind his back, but he’s at his best – often feeding off the keyboardist, Chimenti – when the band taps into the types of jazzy, psychedelic pockets that it did on “Playing,” or on Saturday’s second-set opening sequence of “Uncle John’s Band,” “Help On The Way,” “Slipknot!” and “Franklin’s Tower.” Meanwhile, Hart’s immersive experiments for the nightly “Drums” > “Space” late-show interlude continue to evolve, and Weir consistently brings a wizened worldliness to late-era Garcia ballads like “Standing on the Moon.”

But at this point, how Dead & Company plays isn’t what makes a weekend like this August’s in Golden Gate Park possible – it’s the strength of the Dead’s unparalleled songbook, and the passion of the Deadhead community.

As far as what any of this means for the future of Weir and Hart, or the future of Dead & Company, or the future of the Grateful Dead’s music in general, the question remains open. In 2023, Dead & Company embarked on its final tour, and has accordingly stayed off the road, only playing Sphere and these three Golden Gate Park shows. But the appetite for live Grateful Dead music is seemingly as high as it has ever been – just ask any of the fans at Golden Gate Park who were attending their first Dead show this weekend. The 77-year-old Weir seems uninterested in hanging it up – “What great musician ever retires?” he posed to Billboard in December – and even when the day eventually arrives where he’s off the road, there’s a rising cadre of Gen X and Millennial musicians, among them Mayer, Simpson and Strings, who are prepared to carry the music forward, should they want to.

But this weekend, Weir reiterated to fans that they can still expect plenty more from him. During a set break on Saturday, pre-recorded videos played, featuring interview clips of Weir, Hart, Kreutzmann, Lesh and Garcia talking about the Dead’s origins, community and influence. Weir, sitting in a lotus pose with a guitar perched next to him, explained his wishes for this monumental 60th anniversary: “What do I hope for the 60th? Add another 10 years. I got nothing better to do.”

Legions of Deadheads feel exactly the same way.