_Marc Millman_

Tonight, Phil Lesh & Friends will kick off a special two-night run in Coney Island as the bassist welcomes Eric Krasno, Alan Evans, Neal Evans, Jackie Greene, Jason Crosby, The Shady Horns and Karl Denson to the fold.

One of the notable aspects of this run comes from Krasno, who will debut a special guitar lent to him by John Mayer. The Paul Reed Smith is one of two Mayer had designed for Dead & Company’s tour and specifically with Jerry Garcia in mind.

In speaking to Relix, Krasno details the technical aspects of the guitar and praises Mayer, who he said initially connected with him after Krasno complemented the guitarist’s playing to his Dead & Co bandmate Oteil Burbridge. “[Mayer] said to me, ‘You need to play this guitar, you need to try this.’”

With that, Krasno will take the guitar for a spin this week with hopes of designing his own along the same lines sometime soon. “That’s very generous of him to send out to use,” Krasno said. “It’s a truly beautiful guitar and it has some amazing tones. It’s all about not just emulating what Jerry did but adding our own thing to it and giving our sound with respect to what he did.”