Bob Weir (1947 - 2026)

Bob Weir is gone. The last voice of the Grateful Dead. It's times like these that I wish there were something after this life. I suppose there is a slight chance that there is. No one knows for sure. Anyway, his music has played, and will continue to play, an enormously important role in my life. It was Bob's voice that I heard first. I was six or seven years old, and "I Need A Miracle" came on the radio on the school bus. I didn't know then that it was the Grateful Dead, that this was the first Grateful Dead song I was hearing. I just liked the song, that's all. And it stayed with me. Then when I was ten, my older cousin got "Skeletons From The Closet" for Christmas (or was it his birthday?), and put it on. And I was shocked to hear what I took as country music (based on the album cover, I was expecting something harder). Soon after that I was begging my parents to be allowed to go see the band. They kept saying No. Finally, when I was fifteen I stopped asking and just went ahead and bought a ticket. Exactly one month after I turned sixteen, I saw the Grateful Dead in concert for the first time. And everything changed. In the first set, the band played "Feel Like A Stranger," with Bob singing, "It's going to be long, long, crazy, crazy night." Indeed. And many more of those nights followed. I feel bad for anyone who missed out on this experience. I think they missed seeing several different colors that the rest of us saw. They missed the magic. So, while I am seriously fucking sad right now, I know how fortunate I am to have seen the Grateful Dead (and, in recent years, Dead & Company and Bob Weir & Wolf Bros.) in concert. Let there be songs to fill the air.