\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div> \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotograph by \u00a9 Jim Marshall Photography LLC<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tFor the first 30 years of his life in the Dead, Weir inhabited different roles. He was the youngest member of the original lineup, the voice behind some of the Dead\u2019s friskiest songs (from \u201cSugar Magnolia\u201d and \u201cTruckin\u2019\u201d to \u201cEstimated Prophet\u201d and \u201cHell in a Bucket\u201d), the prankster who got the Dead banned from a major airline by flashing a cap pistol and dropped a water balloon on a cop. Even with his unorthodox style of guitar, which blended lead and rhythm, Weir was the glue that helped keep the band together. \u201cWe tried to kick him out at one point, but it didn\u2019t stick,\u201d says drummer Bill Kreutzmann, referring to a contentious 1968 band meeting. \u201cHe just wasn\u2019t having it. Instead, he knew that if he was going to last, he\u2019d have to figure out a way to play guitar that complemented instead of competed with Jerry [Garcia]. And since Phil [Lesh] didn\u2019t play bass like it was glued to the rhythm section, Bob found some room there and wedged himself into the spaces in between. That\u2019s why he played guitar unlike anyone else.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n \n\tFrom his early ponytail to his later hot pants, Weir was also the Dead\u2019s resident Haight dreamboat. As Dead historian, author, and former band publicist Dennis McNally notes, \u201cYou have to have one<\/em> good-looking guy in a band.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBut by the time Weir died<\/a> \u2014 on Jan. 10, at 78, from \u201cunderlying lung issues\u201d following a battle with cancer (according to his family) \u2014 he had taken on an even greater and more unexpected role. When Dead & Company kicked off in 2015, Weir was no longer the skinny teenager trying to keep up with Garcia and Lesh, nor the frequent butt of band ribbing for his space-cadet side. \u201cHe was the custodian of the most important American rock band, and he just held it so beautifully,\u201d says Aaron Dessner of the National, who recorded and toured with Weir about a decade ago. \u201cAnd it wasn\u2019t an act. He was the living, breathing personification of it.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tOnstage with Weir in Wolf Bros, Was witnessed Weir\u2019s bond with Deadheads on a regular basis. \u201cThey fucking loved<\/em> him, man,\u201d he says. \u201cYou could see how much they appreciated all the experiences they\u2019d had ancillary to this music. We used to do \u2018Ripple\u2019 as an encore every few shows, and he knew what that song meant to them and gave it his all every time. He was aware of the responsibility he had and was honored to tackle it.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n \n\tBut for Weir to arrive at that point was neither effortless, nor a given. Following the death of one of rock\u2019s most recognizable icons and his charismatic mentor, Weir had an elevated role thrust upon him \u2014 one he continually grappled with and had to evolve into, whether he wanted to or not. As Deadheads witnessed for themselves over the course of some difficult years, Weir went through his own variation of the five stages of grief, from a form of denial through a degree of acceptance (with a new physical regimen to accompany it). To use the title of one of the later songs he co-wrote for the Dead, life after Garcia had no easy answers, and posed plenty of hard questions.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tGarcia and Weir onstage in 1976.<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u00a9 Greg Gaar\/Retro Photo Archive<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tWeir\u2019s tour bus had just arrived at the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, when the news started to spread: That day, Aug. 9, 1995, Garcia had succumbed to a heart attack while in rehab in California. Weir was on the road with RatDog, a low-key side project that allowed him to partake in covers of the blues and R&B songs he loved. Refusing to cancel his gig in Hampton Beach, Weir told the couple of thousand in attendance, \u201cOur departed friend, if he proved anything to us, he proved that good music makes sad times better.\u201d In addition to a few lesser-known Dead songs, he also played Dylan\u2019s \u201cKnockin\u2019 on Heaven\u2019s Door,\u201d and spoke a few words at a press conference after.<\/p>\n \n\tThe entire Dead community was devastated that day, but Weir was especially shaken. \u201cJerry\u2019s passing hit us all hard, of course, but it was Bob\u2019s world that changed the most,\u201d says drummer Mickey Hart. \u201cHis partner was gone \u2014 the sound that was always there when he played was gone. They both had stage fright, and they knew that being with each other canceled most of that out. They hung out together in the same onstage tent and yakked or played something during the break and before the concert. They felt comfortable in each other\u2019s presence.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWeir was also the first member of the Dead to return to the stage. \u201cAfter Jerry died, I think we all came around to the idea that the music still belonged to all of us and any of us could do whatever we wanted with it,\u201d says Kreutzmann. \u201cIt took me a few years to figure that out, but I think it took Bob about five minutes \u2014 he played a show in New Hampshire the very night Jerry died. That was also his way of processing it.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAfter flying to California for Garcia\u2019s memorial service, Weir quickly resumed his scheduled tour with RatDog. Matthew Kelly, who had met Weir in grade school and played with him in Kingfish and the first incarnation of RatDog, doesn\u2019t remember Weir breaking down about Garcia in those days. \u201cBobby\u2019s way of dealing with it would be different from other people\u2019s,\u201d Kelly says. \u201cBobby was most comfortable when he was onstage. So the best way for him to heal was to keep playing in whatever configuration it might have been. And that\u2019s what he did.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t<\/p>\n \u201cJerry\u2019s passing hit us \u2028all hard,\u201d Mickey Hart \u2028says. \u201cBut Bob\u2019s world changed the most.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n\tTo the puzzlement of Kelly and the other band members, though, that music rarely included Dead material, and at the start, Weir declined to recruit a lead guitarist to play similar parts to Garcia\u2019s. \u201cThe rest of us in the band got in some talks with Bobby about that,\u201d Kelly says. \u201cHe said, \u2018The more you guys keep saying that, the more I\u2019m going to dig my heels in.\u2019 It was a bit uncomfortable, because the audience was very much expecting us to do that. The looks on their faces were disconcerting and troubling.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe looks grew even more puzzled when Weir, known as the most boyishly handsome member of the Dead, grew facial hair, prompting comparisons to a Civil War reenactor or the cartoon character Yosemite Sam. \u201cThe beard happened out of sheer laziness while I was on tour,\u201d Weir later told Rolling Stone<\/em>. \u201cAnd after being lazy and not shaving for a couple of weeks, I decided I liked the look. I think that\u2019s the way it happens for a lot of guys.\u201d For McNally, the significance was deeper. In 1996, Weir, who\u2019d been adopted, had reconnected with his real father, Jack Parber. One night, the two of them, along with McNally, took in a show together in San Francisco. \u201cJack looked at him and said, \u2018That beard makes you look like your uncle,\u2019 presumably a brother of Jack\u2019s,\u201d McNally says. \u201cI heard that, and I went, \u2018Bobby\u2019s never going to shave that beard.\u2019 Tell a guy who\u2019s been adopted that he looks like he\u2019s related to somebody? Forget it.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWeir was always eager to share anecdotes about Garcia and their escapades. But playing songs associated with his close friend \u2014 the one who had invited the teenage Weir into the jug band that became the Dead \u2014 remained daunting. Once, when RatDog were soundchecking for a show in Albany, New York, Weir began working up his first version of \u201cDays Between,\u201d the elegiac ballad Garcia and Robert Hunter had written toward the end of Garcia\u2019s life. \u201cHe was putting so much work into it,\u201d says Matt Busch, his \u00admanager at the time. \u201cYou could just tell he was working on something that meant so much to him. He was treating it with that kind of reverence.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAs Weir began playing it, a dam burst. \u201cHe was crying while singing it,\u201d Busch says. \u201cThere was a hush in the room. You could just tell how much Jerry meant to him, how much the song meant to him. It showed so much.\u201d At the time, though, those moments seemed few and far between.<\/p>\n \n\tBACKSTAGE AT THE BILL GRAHAM Civic Auditorium in March 2010, Weir, in his customary sandals and T-shirt, took a few sips of red wine and prepared to go onstage with Furthur<\/a>, the Dead offshoot he and Lesh had launched a few months before. \u201cThe Dead\u2019s gonna do what the Dead\u2019s gonna do,\u201d he told Rolling Stone,<\/em> talking about the mothership outfit. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to sell tickets and not turn people off or disappoint them. We\u2019ve got to fulfill some requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tWeir with Ratdog<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u00a9 Herb Greene<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tThree years after Garcia\u2019s death, the surviving members of the Dead \u2014 Weir, Lesh, Hart, and Kreutzmann, along with sidekicks like Bruce Hornsby \u2014 began reconvening for tours, in various configurations. (Among the many guitarists recruited to step into Garcia\u2019s incredibly large shoes was Steve Kimock, who recalls asking Weir for direction and hearing back, \u201cYou\u2019re the fucking guy now. Do what you will or what you can.\u201d) Weir stuck with RatDog, who were transitioning from bars and clubs to theaters. But whether it was the repertoire, the throngs of Deadheads eager to see them all play again, the larger venues or even the shared duties, the lure of the Dead was too strong to resist. As Weir told Rolling Stone<\/em> in 2008, after the core four had reunited for a benefit for Barack Obama, \u201cWhen I\u2019m on the road with RatDog, it\u2019s a 14-hour day of set lists, interviews, and stuff. I\u2019m on<\/em> all the time. It\u2019s a little easier for me with the Dead. The other guys can take on those responsibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWeir was right, but those tours \u2014 whether billed as the Other Ones or the Dead \u2014 were a blend of old camaraderie and lingering friction between the members. His bandmates could sometimes still treat Weir as the kid, busting his chops when he would forget a lyric onstage, as he did at least once on a Dead tour in 2009. But Weir appeared to roll with it, and the idea of writing new material with Furthur \u2014 his and Lesh\u2019s project, without Hart or Kreutzmann, who weren\u2019t invited \u2014 appealed to his restless creativity. \u201cThat\u2019s gonna be the next place we\u2019re gonna go,\u201d he said before the San Francisco show, a 70th-birthday celebration for Lesh. \u201cFor instance, today, for the first time at soundcheck, we weren\u2019t practicing an old tune. We were kicking something around that will become a song. And it\u2019s about time<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t<\/p>\n \u201cIt took me years to realize the music still belonged to us. It took Bob five minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n\tRising above the intraband fray, Weir remained gentlemanly and affable. But backstage at the Graham Civic, and in other interviews during that time, he often came across as taciturn and burdened \u2014 especially compared with the other surviving Dead members, who could be jokey and wisecracking. Weir had never been averse to alcohol; among his many lifestyle rituals was burning off a night of wine with an intense morning run the next day. Kelly recalls Weir driving around Marin County\u2019s twisty roads after a fair bit of consumption. \u201cIt was a miracle he never died,\u201d Kelly recalls. \u201cI\u2019d be terrified: \u2018Bobby, can you slow down?\u2019 He\u2019d go, \u2018Yeah,\u2019 and step on the gas.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tBut something had to give, and it finally did in a very public way. When Furthur took the stage of the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York, in 2013, Weir was already dealing with long-standing physical pain: \u201cI\u2019m going to have to have my shoulder replaced at some point,\u201d he told Rolling Stone<\/em> in 2008 \u2014 the result, he said, of years throwing footballs as part of his jock side. But as Deadheads watched in dismay, a clearly discombobulated Weir collapsed onstage.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAlthough Weir never specified, band members attributed it to Weir taking an Ambien pill instead of a painkiller for a shoulder injury. When Rolling Stone<\/em> asked him in 2025 what he learned from that experience, he replied<\/a>, \u201cTake it easier on myself a little bit, and stuff like that.\u201d Weir was back onstage two months after the incident, for a benefit in Marin, but the time came for him to address his issues, and he stepped away for an undetermined period. When the topic came up during an interview in 2014, the late John Perry Barlow, Weir\u2019s longtime friend and songwriting partner, said, \u201cHe\u2019s been taking a little personal time. I think he\u2019s doing more or less OK.\u201d The same year, Lesh told Rolling Stone,<\/em> \u201cYes, it makes me very concerned. But what to do?\u201d For a moment, few knew the answer.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tThe Dead in 1979<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u00a9 Herb Greene<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tWHEN HIS CELLPHONE LIT UP in 2013, Josh Kaufman wasn\u2019t sure who was ringing him at his home in Brooklyn \u2014 no caller ID. But it soon became clear: \u201cWeir here,\u201d came the same genial greeting so many had heard over the years.<\/p>\n \n\tWeir\u2019s road to Blue Mountain<\/a>,<\/em> the album that would play a major role in his return, had started shortly before that call. A year earlier, Weir had collaborated with a slew of East Coast indie rockers, including members of the National, on two live sessions, one in honor of Garcia\u2019s 70th birthday. When Weir told Kaufman and the musicians he wanted the music to have a \u201ccowboy \u00adswagger,\u201d Kaufman helped conceive of a Weir album that\u2019d tap into his love of cowboy songs and country.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tOn that phone call with Kaufman, Weir grabbed a guitar and started singing snippets of campfire songs from his past, eagerly \u00adwanting to add new verses to some of them. \u201cI didn\u2019t feel starstruck anymore,\u201d Kaufman says. \u201cI just felt like, \u2018Wow, this guy\u2019s just like us.\u2019 He\u2019s way cooler<\/em> than us, but he\u2019s passionate and wants to look for something in this music still.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tRecorded over a two-year period, Blue Mountain, <\/em>Weir\u2019s first solo album since 1978\u2019s Heaven Help the Fool,<\/em> was a beautifully ambient collection of modern-day ranch-hand ballads, and Weir soon launched an accompanying tour. But as Kaufman and his collaborators saw with the sledgehammer, the musical rebirth was just one part of his recovery. On tour, Weir\u2019s exercise gear, including resistance ropes, took up so much space in the bus that others on the tour had to stash their luggage in their own bunks.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tSpeaking with Rolling Stone<\/em> in 2016, Weir noted some lifestyle changes that accompanied his workout regimen. \u201cOh, you know, I can\u2019t drink like I used to,\u201d he said <\/a>with a wise chuckle. Was that an issue? \u201cWell, it depends on who you talk to,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not as serious about drinking when I sit down to drink as I used to be. When I was more concerned about knocking \u2019em back, I wasn\u2019t focusing on the delights a good glass of wine had to offer.\u201d (He also rolled with a question about how many pairs of Birkenstocks he owned: \u201cFour or five. Two or three of those pair you won\u2019t want to own. I don\u2019t know why I keep them.\u201d)<\/p>\n \n\tWeir\u2019s second \u2014 or third \u2014 wind coincided with the renaissance of the Dead. In 2015, he\u2019d participated in Fare Thee Well<\/a>, the five-concert series that found the four surviving core members celebrating the group\u2019s 50th anniversary. Weir appeared back in control, and when he walked offstage one of the nights in Chicago, he flashed a smile, as if remembering the thrill of playing stadiums. Around the same time, in a moment Hart now calls \u201cmythic,\u201d Hart, Weir, and Mayer met at the Capitol Records building in Los Angeles. Soon after, Dead & Company, with John Mayer acquitting himself in the Garcia role better than anyone would have thought, set sail. \u201cBob finally had a lead guitar and could relax a bit,\u201d says Hart, \u201cand this took the weight off of being the only lead singer or guitarist.\u201d Weir, Hart says, was \u201cclean and sober, and Dead & Company was the new frontier.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAs the new kid in the band, Mayer soon learned which cues to take from Weir. \u201cBobby and I had this wonderful push-pull where Bobby liked a certain demureness in the music,\u201d Mayer says. \u201cAt that point in his life, he wanted to go into the song and a telling of the lyric and the song through subtlety. Early on, I was hitting it too hot, even when I knew I shouldn\u2019t. When I would mess up, Bobby liked it. He would look over at me and do the cross-eyed shake of his head, and I think it made him feel like I was willing to sign that same contract everyone in that band had signed, which is \u2018We\u2019re going to mess up sometimes.\u2019 He probably liked it more when I messed up than when I hit a three-point shot, because he knew the messing up \u00adhumbled me.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t<\/p>\n \u201cYou could tell how much Jerry meant to Bob,\u201d says Weir\u2019s former manager.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n\tCombined with Fare Thee Well and Day of the Dead,<\/em> the indie-all-star tribute of Dead songs that came a year later, the Dead \u2014 and their newly resurrected, been-there-survived-that frontman \u2014 were suddenly hip, paragons of Americana, self-reliance, and an indie spirit. For those who\u2019d never seen Garcia onstage or only knew him as a figure from a distant past, Weir was now the living embodiment of the band, its vocal link to the past, its gravitas-steeped elder statesman. He was their Jerry, evidenced by the T-shirt vendors outside their shows who would sell shirts with only Weir\u2019s face on them.<\/p>\n \n\tWeir also injected a sense of adventurousness into some of the members of Dead & Company, including former Allman Brothers Band bassist Oteil Burbridge. \u201cI would think, \u2018We\u2019re going to work on these songs,\u2019 and then Bob would do a 30-minute jam on something else we had no intention of working on,\u201d Burbridge says, recalling the band\u2019s rehearsals. \u201cIt might be frustrating at times when you\u2019re like, \u2018OK, we got to get these 12 songs done today,\u2019 but you just have to let your life proceed by its own design, and amazing things would come out of that, too. I was like, \u2018Just hop on, man, wherever you\u2019re at \u2014 don\u2019t try to have a plan.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWeir\u2019s renewal was also evident to Denise Kaufman, a musician and yoga instructor he\u2019d met during the earliest days of the Dead. In 2018, Ace of Cups, the pioneering all-female San Francisco band she\u2019d co-founded, was making a new album, and Kaufman invited Weir to sing on one of its songs, \u201cThe Well.\u201d To Kaufman\u2019s surprise, Weir spent several very focused days in the studio, singing, adding new guitar parts, and rebooting the song.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tBy then, Weir\u2019s personal life had stabilized. In 1999, he had married his longtime girlfriend Natascha Muenter, with whom he had two daughters, Chloe and Shala (who goes by Monet, her middle name). Kaufman had last seen Weir in 2011, but the change was noticeable. \u201cAt that time, he was less healthy, but subsequently, it just seemed like everything in his life, the really important things, were more to the front,\u201d she says. \u201cHe was valuing what matters in his own life.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t<\/p>\n \u201cBob finally had a lead guitar,\u201d Hart says of John Mayer. \u201cHe could relax. This took the weight off.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n\tLAST JUNE, JUST A MONTH after his final shows with Dead & Company at the Sphere in Las Vegas, Weir was already onto his new musical adventure. Onstage at London\u2019s Royal Albert Hall, he and Wolf Bros \u2014 which also included Was, drummer Jay Lane, and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti \u2014 were refreshing the Dead repertoire, this time with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. The show was the latest in a series of orchestral Wolf Bros gigs begun the year before. \u201cHe said the weirdest thing to me when we were taking our bows,\u201d Was recalls. \u201cHe loved the sound of that room. The orchestra was great. And he said, \u2018Man, I\u2019d be happy to die in this place.\u2019 I knew what he meant. But he didn\u2019t know how it was going to resonate six months later.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWolf Bros began back in 2018. For what would be his last and most ambitious venture outside of the Dead, Weir unexpectedly reached out to Was, with whom Weir had occasionally worked over the previous two-plus decades. (Weir, a true believer in the messages conveyed in dreams, had dreamt of the late bassist Rob Wasserman recommending Was for the gig.) The idea, Was says, was to focus on Weir\u2019s songs and the characters in them rather than on the jammy side of the Dead. In typical on-the-fly fashion, Weir told Was to learn six Dead songs \u2014 then promptly forgot which ones when Was showed up for the trio\u2019s first rehearsal. \u201cHe just started \u00adplaying what he felt at the moment,\u201d Was says. \u201cI think we jammed on a minor chord for 20 minutes.\u201d When it stopped, Weir called his team and told them to book a tour; he\u2019d already come up with \u201cWolf Bros\u201d as the band name.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tDead & Company in 2025<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u00a9 Jay Blakesberg<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tFor the following seven years, when he wasn\u2019t joining peers like Paul McCartney or Paul Simon onstage, Weir reinvented himself again with Bobby Weir and Wolf Bros. In such a spare setting, his unconventional guitar parts were more clearly and cleanly heard, and the shows felt like he was reclaiming his legacy outside of the Dead. (When Was suggested a few of Garcia\u2019s songs, like \u201cTo Lay Me Down,\u201d Weir passed: \u201cThere was definitely resistance. Too close to something,\u201d says Was.) At Third Man Records in Nashville, as owner Jack White looked on, the band also cut an album, which included the first studio version of \u201cJack Straw.\u201d (According to Was, the album, produced by Dave Cobb, was largely finished by the time of Weir\u2019s death.) Late last year, Was received a text from Weir, relaying specific instructions about how to pare back the music even more and play fewer notes in the future.<\/p>\n \n\tIn the last year or so of his life, Weir\u2019s work revealed a sense of urgency. By last year, the Dead had lost many of its key members; Lesh<\/a>, Barlow<\/a>, and singer Donna Jean Godchaux<\/a> had all died in the previous few years alone. According to Was, Weir would sometimes speak of death when the band was on the road. \u201cHe was acutely aware that time was running out,\u201d he says. \u201cNot as quickly as it actually did, but he was aware that he wasn\u2019t going to be around forever to play these songs.\u201d That, he says, was partly the impetus for arranging the Dead repertoire for symphonies: \u201cHe told Jay, Jeff, and me that his intention was for us to continue playing those shows when he couldn\u2019t do it anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tLast summer, the Dead celebrated<\/a> their 60th anniversary at Golden Gate Park, which again confirmed Weir\u2019s central role. Still not the most physically expressive character on stage, his satisfaction was clear to Lesh\u2019s son Grahame, who joined the band <\/a>for a few songs. \u201cBob would have this sort of little grin kind of behind the mustache,\u201d Grahame says. But to Burbridge, the shows also revealed that Weir was coping with unspecified health issues. \u201cHe was moving very slow,\u201d he says. \u201cEverybody could see he was struggling. The fact he pulled it off was the highlight.\u201d The future appeared hazy, too. Weir had been a road dog for so long \u2014 he even parked his tour bus outside of the Sphere despite renting a nearby home during the band\u2019s run there \u2014 that the dearth of any live dates for 2026 was startling, almost alarming, to those in the Dead world.<\/p>\n \n\tJust before Christmas, members of Dead & Company, Weir included, reunited in a holiday-greetings group text. But according to those who knew or worked with Weir, his last few months were private ones as he dealt with his cancer. Hearing that his friend of nearly 60 years was in his final days, Hart visited Weir at his home in Mill Valley, California. \u201cWe went for a ride \u2014 he drove my car and seemed on the mend,\u201d Hart says. \u201cThen down the rabbit hole he went.\u201d Those in the dark about the decline of Weir\u2019s health were stunned when his family announced that he had \u201ctransitioned peacefully, surrounded by loved ones.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t<\/p>\n \u201cBob said, \u2018Man, I\u2019d be happy to die in this place,\u2019\u2009\u201d \u2028Was recalls. \u201cI knew what \u2028he meant.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n\tFor both longtime Deadheads and those who\u2019d discovered the band in more recent times, Weir\u2019s passing wasn\u2019t just the loss of another classic-rock hero. Although Hart and Kreutzmann remain, the disappearance of the last voice of the Dead felt cataclysmic. \u201cThere\u2019s certainly a generation that has now grown up with Bob being their closest connection to that music, especially with Phil passing,\u201d says Kaufman. \u201cI know a lot of my friends and I are feeling extra emotional, because this thing is gone now. The front line is gone.\u201d The future of Dead & Company is very much up in the air, but as Grahame Lesh says, \u201cYou can\u2019t really replace Bob, and we\u2019re going to find that out even more now.\u201d\u00a0Weir himself saw it coming, as he told Rolling<\/em> Stone<\/a> in 2016. During an early show with Dead & Company, he flashed to another scene. \u201cIt was 20 years later, and I look over to my right and John had turned gray,\u201d he said. \u201cI looked over to my left at Jeff and his hair was silver. Then I looked back at the drum riser and there were two kids back there, all holding forth and serving the music.\u201d The vision then appeared in a dream that same night. \u201cI awoke with the revelation that if we serve this legacy, it\u2019ll just go on,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd people will be teaching this in music school in 200 or 300 years. That\u2019s an edifying feel. But it also came with the responsibility of doing this right.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
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