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by Stew Sallo, author of “The Deadhead Cyclist.”
Life lessons on two wheels to the tunes of the
Grateful Dead
Robert Hall Weir, né Parber,
October 16, 1947 – January 10, 2026
Let the words be yours, I’m done with mine.
I first saw Bob Weir on October 19, 1974 with the Grateful Dead at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. I last saw Bob Weir on June 14, 2024 as a member of Dead & Company at The Sphere in Las Vegas. Over the course of almost 50 years, it was my privilege to see Bobby perform countless times as a member of the Grateful Dead, Kingfish, Ratdog, the Other Ones, The Dead, Furthur, Dead & Company, the Weir Robinson & Greene Acoustic Trio, and probably others that I have failed to remember.
Other Posts
This Week in Grateful Dead History: Week 1 – December 31, 1978
The storyteller makes no choice
The Grateful Dead were famous for their New Year’s shows, and played twenty-one times at the stroke of midnight on December 31, at six different venues, all in the Bay Area. Six of those shows took place at the Winterland Ballroom, an erstwhile ice skating rink which became a storied rock music venue with a capacity of some 5000. Sadly, Winterland was shuttered in 1979, but not until one final concert had taken place. For reasons ranging from its eight-hour length, to the line-up that included the Blues Brothers and the New Riders of the Purple Sage, to the almost-six-hour DVD – The Closing of Winterland – that was made to commemorate the event, this was easily the most famous of the Dead’s New Year’s shows, and the Deadhead Cyclist’s choice for T.W.I.G.D.H., as well as the best New Year’s Eve show of all time.
This Week in Grateful Dead History: Week 41 – October 11, 1980
Ripple in still water
After 3 years at a high school in Anaheim, CA and 2 years at UCLA, my life had become as stagnant as the bumper-to-bumper traffic I found myself sitting in on the Santa Ana freeway during the fall of ’74, while waiting for my transfer to UC Santa Cruz to come through. Even against a backdrop of inexperience during the waning months of my teenage years, I had learned enough to allow intuition to lead the way in making my first big grownup decision: moving from Southern to Northern California. There is no way I could have anticipated the ripples this life-changing shift would create that are still being felt decades down the road.
This Week in Grateful Dead History: Week 28 - July 8, 1978
Sometimes we live
When a band has played more than 2300 shows, it’s hard to imagine that any one of them would achieve legendary status. But there are certain Grateful Dead concerts that firmly fit into that category. For starters there’s little disagreement that 5/8/77 at Cornell University’s Barton Hall would be on such a list; the 12/31/78 Closing of Winterland comes to mind; 2/27/69 at the Fillmore West – from which the epic, Side 1-long Dark Star on the Live Dead album was derived – would have to be included; the Great American Music Hall show on 8/13/75 is an obvious choice; 5/26/72 at London’s Lyceum Theater, the final date of the Europe ’72 tour, has been immortalized on the album of the same name; and more recently, the 12/15/86 show at the Oakland Coliseum arena – the Dead’s first performance in more than 5 months after Jerry Garcia collapsed in a diabetic coma on July 10 of that year and almost died – easily deserves such distinction.
All Material Copyright 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 by Stewart Sallo