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I rarely ever discussed it on my channel but I’m a Deadhead. I grew up in a music-appreciating family, and I first heard of the band when my dad mentioned my aunt had travelled across the country to see them. I decided to check out Europe ‘72 and their biggest hits. It was there I found songs like “Terrapin Station” and “Ripple,” both of which feel larger than rock songs, like many Dead tunes do. I listened to a handful of live shows including the great One from the Vault show from August 15th, 1976 which remains one of my all time favorites. Yet it wasn’t until seeing Dead & Company live that I considered myself a Deadhead. I had missed my chance to see Jerry by a few years. I had seen cover bands before but nothing matched up to the spectacle of D&C. The vibe of those two days were incredible. To walk down Shakedown, to be surrounded by this unique American culture, and to hear this legendary music… it’s hard to put into words. Even without Jerry, without Phil, without Pigpen, Brent, Keith, Vince, Tom, it felt like something inside me had changed. Between John Mayer’s incredible guitar work, Oteil’s melodic bass, Jeff’s soaring keys, and the work of the Rhythm Devils Bill and Mickey, Bob Weir stood out like a sore thumb. Bob looked like a man who had stepped out of the westerns he sung of, as if he was there in Rose’s Cantina down in El Paso. The cowboy hat paired with that grey bushy beard. His tone was surreal. The treble was boosted as high as it could go. It was as if he was playing barbed wire. So ugly but, at the same time, somehow sitting right. His voice, older than the tapes I knew, came through strong.
The long strange trip continued in the following years. I saw Bob as much as I could, even traveling out of state to see him in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. I bonded with so many people over this music. A bit ago now we lost Phil Lesh, and then we lost Donna Jean. Rumours circulated that Bob wasn’t in great health due to nothing being on the radar going into 2026. Deadheads are not particuarly trustworthy on the rumour front so I didn’t think too much of it, though I had a feeling things were slowing down. Then the news broke. Bobby passed. It was my dad, a Deadhead himself, who told me the news via text. Needless to say, it was a rough night. Lots of tears. I was listening to all my favorites from Bob over the years, whether it were his originals like “Looks Like Rain” and “Playing in the Band” or his covers of Dylan tunes and other americana. My Deadhead friends took it hard too. While the passings of Phil and Donna were hard in their own respects, Bobby was a special figure. I think for many people my age, Bobby was our Jerry. He was the living ambassador of the music and the representation of the freewheeling energy the Dead were known for. There are few men in music who hold such a weight on their shoulders.
The memorial in San Francisco only brought more tears. Some laughter too (thanks Mickey) but I couldn’t shrug off my sadness. Yet in that moment, something magical happened. His wife Natascha noticed a hawk flying around. For any other band this would be nothing, but to Deadheads, nothing is coincidence. There’s a magic to the Dead, a mythology even, that’s hard to explain. For all the days the band performed, they never performed the day Jerry died: August 9th. When the band reunited in 2015 alongside Phish’s Trey Anastasio a rainbow unfurled itself in San Francisco. The last song Jerry ever played was a Phil song, the last song Phil ever sang was a Bobby song, and the last song Bob ever sang was a Jerry song. The universe works in mysterious ways with the Dead. I’m by no means a spiritual person but sometimes things are hard to deny. The hawk was Bobby.
Bob often talked about where the Dead would be in three hundred years. Right now we’re a little over sixty. The magic hasn’t faded. The work Bobby created as part of the greatest American band of all time isn’t gone, or outdated, or unimportant. It still touches our souls. It’s a miracle, but also the result of generations of people coming decade after decade to listen and share this experience that’s impossible to put into words. I don’t doubt it will last three hundred years or more. They’re a band beyond description like Jehovah’s favorite choir, after all.
I guess I’ll leave you with this. If you want to understand this moment and why it has struck people hard, listen to Europe ‘72. Listen to Cornell ‘77. Dive into American Beauty, Workingman’s Dead, Blues For Allah, Wake of the Flood, From the Mars Hotel, In the Dark, and the rest, as well as the solo albums like Ace and Garcia. Go watch the Grateful Dead Movie. Check our Dark Star Orchestra or Joe Russo’s Almost Dead or Bertha or whoever comes to your town. When you hear the crowd cheer, or the lyrics beyond compare, and here the band kick into a jam that exists beyond space and time, you’ll get it.