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 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 14 - March 28, 1981
Left-hand monkey wrench
For musicologist Michael Steven Hartman, music is a direct reflection of the rhythms of the universe and the lifeforms that inhabit it. While his interests in polyrhythmic and exotic percussion are plainly evident during the Drums and Space portion of any Dead concert, many Deadheads are unaware of the lifelong dedication Hartman, A.K.A. Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart, has shown in exploring the cosmic common thread that music, and particularly drumming, represents in human consciousness.
This Week in Grateful Dead History: Week 13 - March 23, 1974
Comic book colors on a violin river
A few weeks ago we explored the seemingly oxymoronic nature of Grateful Dead as a band name. “Upon scrutiny” we came to the conclusion that the words, “grateful” and “dead,” are not the strange bedfellows they appear to be, but actually complement each other to perfection if considered in the context of the psychedelic-inspired “ego death” experience the band and most Deadheads were engaged in during the Acid Test years (and, of course, well beyond). Still, if there were a Jeopardy category called, “Strange band names of the Sixties,” Grateful Dead would most likely be the “Daily Double.” And there are plenty of other band names that came out of that same period that appear to defy logic, regardless of how hard you try to spin them.
All Material Copyright 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 by Stewart Sallo