When John Mayer took the stage at the recent Bob Weir memorial, he could have picked any song in the Grateful Dead catalog to close out the event. Unsurprisingly, he went with “Ripple.” The 1970 American Beauty track wasn’t a single, never received much airplay, and wasn’t even a staple of Grateful Dead concerts outside of tiny pockets in 1970/71 and 1980. But it’s become an anthem for generations of Deadheads that somehow grows more beloved as time goes on. That’s one reason why the entire crowd at the memorial sang along, old and young, and why it’s been a staple of every post-Jerry offshoot the surviving members of the band have assembled over the decades. Here’s a look back at 15 different versions of “Ripple,” played by different iterations of the Dead — from the very first live performance by the band all the way to the recent singalong for Bobby.
Grateful Dead: Aug. 18, 1970 – San Francisco @ The Fillmore West
Weeks before the Grateful Dead entered Wally Heider Studios to record “Ripple” and other American Beauty songs, they debuted the song at the Fillmore West in San Francisco, on a bill with New Riders of the Purple Sage. The lucky fans that night also heard the live premieres of “Operator,” and “Brokedown Palace,” and the second “Truckin’” after its debut the prior night. They parted ways with keyboardist Tom Constanten earlier in the year, and wouldn’t hire Keith Godchaux for another year, so this is the original incarnation of the band. There’s no film footage of the show, but it was captured in pristine audio.
Grateful Dead: Oct. 31, 1980 – New York @ Radio City Music Hall
The Grateful Dead dropped “Ripple” from its live repertoire following a couple of Fillmore East shows in 1971, and wouldn’t bring it back even a single time for nearly a decade. That means beloved Seventies keyboardist Keith Godchaux didn’t ever have the opportunity to perform it. When they finally revived it in 1980, Brent Mydland was at the keys. Here’s a stellar version from their famous 1980 Halloween show at Radio City Music Hall. It was released in the concert film Grateful Dead: Dead Ahead.
Grateful Dead: Sept. 3, 1988 – Landover, MD @ The Capitol Center
“Ripple” again vanished from the Dead’s live repertoire after 1981, and wouldn’t pop up again until a Maryland show in 1988. This was a truly stunning moment for fans since it was the first “Ripple” in seven years, and the first electric one since 1971. (It was precipitated by Jerry breaking it out at seven Jerry Garcia Band shows in late 1987.) What nobody knew that night was that they were witnessing the final “Ripple” that Grateful Dead would ever perform. It didn’t even surface at another JGB concert. Jerry never sang it again.
The Other Ones: June 28, 1998 – East Rutherford, NJ @ Continental Airlines Arena
In the first couple of years after Jerry Garcia’s death, Bob Weir toured hard all over the country with his new band RatDog. But they played very few Grateful Dead songs at first, relying instead on solo tunes and covers. In 1998, however, Weir, Phil Lesh, and Bill Kreutzmann came together under the moniker the Other Ones. They were joined by keyboardist Bruce Hornsby, guitarist Steve Kimock, drummer John Molo, and sax player Dave Ellis. They played sets filled with Dead favorites, and brought back “Ripple” at Jersey’s Continental Airlines Arena as the last encore. It was the start of a whole new Dead era.
Phil Lesh and Friends: July 3, 1999 – San Francisco @ The Warfield Theater
Lesh decided to go out on his own following the 1998 Furthur tour, and formed Phil Lesh and Friends with a rotating crew of musicians. Unlike RatDog, they embraced the Grateful Dead catalog from day one and played little outside of it. Here’s a rendition of “Ripple” from a September 1999 gig at the Warfield Theater. It’s one of the only times that Kreutzmann played drums in the group. It was an early sign to fans that his Hawaiian sabbatical was over.
The Other Ones: Sept. 23, 2000 – Live Oak, FL @ Suwannee Music Park
In the summer of 2000, a new incarnation of the Other Ones hit the road. They managed to pull Kreutzmann into the fold this time, but Lesh sat it out to focus on Phil and Friends. (They toured that summer with Bob Dylan). That meant the Other Ones once again had 3/4th of the “Core Four” (Weir, Lesh, Kreutzmann, and Mickey Hart) but it was a different 3/4th. Alphonso Johnson handled bass parts, and Hornsby was again on keyboards. But for the final encore of “Ripple” at this show in Florida, he moved over to accordion.
The Dead: July 11, 2003 – Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre
The “Core Four” of Weir, Lesh, Kreutzmann, and Hart finally came together as one in 2003. “With the greatest possible respect to our collective history, we have decided to keep the name ‘Grateful Dead’ retired in honor of Jerry’s memory, and call ourselves: ‘The Dead,’” the band said in a statement. This was a gift to concert promoters who had a difficult time marketing the Other Ones. On this first tour, they split the Jerry duties between Jimmy Herring (guitar) and Joan Osborne (vocals). There’s no video of this “Ripple,” but you can hear Weir and Osborne locking in their voices. (They went back out in 2008 with Warren Haynes, but without Osborne.)
The Dead: May 7, 2009 – Denver @ Pepsi Center
The Dead took an extended hiatus following their 2004 summer, but they came back together in 2008 to play a benefit gig for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. That led to an arena tour the following year. This was a slightly slimmed-down lineup without Jimmy Herring, who was in Widespread Panic at this point. It was simply the “Core Four,” plus Warren Haynes and Jeff Chimenti.
Bob Weir and RatDog: April 2, 2004 – Worcester, MA @ Palladium
Bob Weir spent his entire adult life on the road. And when he wasn’t playing with the Dead or the Other ones in the 2000s, he was booking clubs and theaters with RatDog. By this point, he had surrendered to market forces and was playing sets focused around Dead tunes. Here’s a rendition of “Ripple” from 2004 where he’s joined by drummer Jay Lane and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti. They’d both go on to become crucial parts of Dead & Company. (The great Rob Wasserman is on bass. He died from cancer in 2016.
The Rhythm Devils: July 17, 2010 – North Plains, OR @ Horning’s Hideout
For reasons that have never been totally explained, the Dead’s 2008-09 reunion was very short lived. In the aftermath, they split into two different camps. Kreutzmann and Hart were on one side with their project the Rhythm Devils, and Weir and Lesh were on the other. This didn’t leave Kreutzmann and Hart simply playing “Drums/Space” for two hours a night: They brought in guitarists Keller Williams and Davy Knowles, bassist Andy Hess, and percussionist Sikiru Adepoju, and performed Dead songs throughout North America.
Furthur: Jan. 16, 2013 – Mill Valley, CA @ Sweetwater Music Hall
While Hart and Kreutzmann were busy with the Rhythm Devils, Lesh and Weir formed Furthur with Chimenti, Dark Star Orchestra frontman John Kadlecik, and drummers Joe Russo and Jay Lane. Over six years, they played an enormous range of songs, including some surprises like the Clash’s “Train in Vain” and Pink Floyd’s “Eclipse.” They called it a day in 2014. “The ability to play 60, 70 shows a year around the country was running its course,” Kadlecik told Rolling Stone in 2022. “They were getting to the point where Bob and Phil wanted different approaches moving forward.”
Fare Thee Well: July 3, 2015 – Chicago @ Soldier Field
In the summer of 2015, the “Core Four” came back together for the first time in six years to celebrate the band’s 50th anniversary. They were joined by Hornsby, Chimenti, and Trey Anastasio. The fusion of Phish and the Dead was a massive event in the jam band world, and five stadium shows sold out within seconds. The good people at setlist.fm consider these the only Grateful Dead concerts after Jerry’s death, but that’s not really how they were billed or how we should think of them today. But they were the last time Weir, Lesh, Hart, and Kreutzmann played together, even if one more huge chapter in Dead history had yet to be written by three of them.
Dead & Company: Nov. 25, 2017 – Columbus, OH @ Nationwide Arena
The Fare Thee Well concerts were framed as the final chapter of the Grateful Dead saga. But few people knew that John Mayer — who first came across the band’s music in 2011 — was developing a tight bond with Weir after first playing with him on The Late Late Show in February 2015. By the time Fare Thee Well rolled around, plans were already in place to put Dead & Company on the road later that same year. The lineup was Mayer, Weir, Hart, Kreutzmann, Chimenti, and bassist Oteil Burbridge. They’d tried out basically every jam band guitarist in the universe to fill the Jerry slot by this point in their history, and nobody would have ever guessed the answer was the guy who gave us “Your Body Is a Wonderland.” But with Mayer at the helm, the Dead played to their biggest crowds since Jerry died. He also brought an entirely new generation of fans into the fold.
Bob Weir and Wolf Bros: Nov. 9, 2021 – Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre
Weir quietly retired RatDog in 2014, shortly before Fare Thee Well. And in 2018, when Dead & Company were on a break, he put together a new solo band he dubbed Bob Weir and Wolf Bros. It was a lean unit that featured Lane and Chimenti with Don Was on bass, though some tours had an expanded crew of musicians he called the Wolfpack. They toured whenever Dead & Company were inactive. Their last gig was June 21, 2025, at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
John Mayer & Company: Jan. 17, 2026 – San Francisco @ Civic Center Plaza
Dead & Company didn’t play “Ripple” at their three-night 60th anniversary celebration in August 2025. But as we noted earlier, Mayer sang it at Weir’s Homecoming memorial in San Francisco. (This is just a short drive from the studio where “Ripple” was recorded, and the the theater where it was first played live.) Mayer handled the guitar and lead vocals on his own, but he was joined by Hart, Lane, Chimenti, and Burbridge, along with Joan Baez, Weir’s wife Natascha, his daughters Monet and Chloe, San Francisco mayor Daniel Lurie, and Nancy Pelosi. You read that last part correctly. The 85-year-old former Speaker of the House was onstage for the most recent “Ripple.” She may have been the only person in the audience who didn’t know the words, but she did her best to sing along. Somewhere up in the cosmos, Garcia, Lesh, Weir, and Pigpen surely had a nice chuckle watching this unfold.
