\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div> \t\t\t\t\tThe Grateful Dead in Passaic, New Jersey, Nov. 24, 1978.<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u00a9 Jay Blakesberg<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tThis photo was taken the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, New Jersey. That was a special Deadheads-only concert where you had to mail a letter to an address and if you got chosen\u00a0\u2014 because it holds 3,000 people. They played a stadium three months before, and now they\u2019re playing a 3,000-seat theater right down the street, essentially. Got a ticket for that.\u00a0I wrote to [the band], basically lying, saying that I lost my serial number to get my tickets. It was like \u201cthe dog ate my homework.\u201d I was 16 years old. It\u2019s classic. Luckily, a buddy of mine from high school\u2019s mother was friends with the mother of the guy who ran the box office, and we ended up getting tickets.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tGrateful Dead Fare Thee Well at Soldier Field in Chicago, July 5, 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u00a9 Jay Blakesberg<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tAt Fare Thee Well<\/a> in 2015, I was always looking for that killer shot of Bob, Phil, and Trey [Anastasio] in close proximity to each other. During\u00a0\u201cNot Fade Away,\u201d just before the second set ended, Bob and Trey came in from the wings towards each other with guns blazing, heads whipping, and legs rising, and at that moment the stars all aligned for me to get that high-energy photograph of the three of them. Not spread out on a large stadium-size stage, but connecting intimately at the peak moment!<\/p>\n \t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tBob Weir photographed at Dead Ahead in Cancun, Mexico, Jan. 12, 2024.<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u00a9 Jay Blakesberg<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tBut I love so many live shots that I took of him onstage with Dead & Co. There\u2019s several that are really my favorites. My photos that capture Bob in an intense moment, in a happy smiling moment, in a ecstatic leg-up-in-the-air, arm-up-in-the-air moment, those are all my favorite photos. And when he\u2019s connecting with his bandmates onstage, when he\u2019s connecting with his bandmates offstage. I just feel like Bob was all about the music and I want that to show through in my photographs because at the end of the day, it was his music and those songs and the way that he practiced them and reinvented them and reinterpreted them and played them differently every time because no risk, no reward. And they went for it, and there was a lot of reward out there.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tDead & Company in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco on Aug. 3, 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\tIn Golden Gate Park, at the very end of the last night when the band did their bow, they all bowed and then everybody left the stage and just Bobby and Mickey stayed out onstage. It was a really, really touching moment. I don\u2019t know if anybody knew it at the time that it was the last time they were going to be onstage together. And so that\u2019s a really special photograph for me: Bob and Mickey up there, just\u00a0 being in the moment on Aug. 3, 2025. It\u2019s the final photograph. And I always would say that even though Jerry died in 1995, my Grateful Dead photography archive is not complete until all the band members stop playing music. So the Jerry part is done, the Phil part is done, the Bobby part is done. There\u2019s still more music to come from Mickey and Billy [Kreutzmann], and the archive continues to grow with them for now. But that is my last photo of Bob. That\u2019s, to me, a meaningful photo.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRosie McGee<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tI don\u2019t think I ever \u201cworked with Bobby\u201d as a photographer \u2014 I just photographed him spontaneously, mostly candid photos behind the scenes during the band\u2019s wild and wonderful first decade and then a few times in the mid-Eighties. Mostly he never noticed, but once in a while, he stopped just long enough to engage with me directly. I treasure the resulting photos as gifts.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tDead & Co. in San Rafael, California, on Sept. 29, 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDanny Clinch<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tThey had one PR session, and I shot it. They gave me a ton of time and we had a blast. It was so much fun being around the band and Bob. He was sort of a spiritual guru and a guy who was going with the flow and was just really open-minded. It was just so cool to be around.<\/p>\n \n\tI loved his transformation into shaggy-haired, cowboy-hat-wearing, big-mustache, poncho-wearing Bob. I loved that part of him and I was glad that I was able to capture him in that moment as well. It was visually so cool.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tA smoking circle at Wille Nelson\u2019s 90th Birthday Concert at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, May 1,<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDanny Clinch<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tI got to watch him appreciate the younger musicians. This is a great Bob Weir moment for me, where it\u2019s myself, Bob, Billy Strings, Nathaniel Rateliff, Margo Price, all standing in a big circle, smoking a huge joint. Everybody in the circle. I just looked around and of course I was photographing very casually, just because I was a part of the group. Everybody there was just like, \u201cIs this really happening? Because this is pretty wild.\u201d Just living in that moment was incredible.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u00a9 Bob Minkin<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tHere\u2019s a cool backstage moment. The Dead played thousands of shows, but here they are going on stage at Laguna Seca in California [in the late 1980s]. There\u2019s Bill Graham leading the way. Look at Jerry and Bob. They\u2019re smiling and eager. It\u2019s like they\u2019re going to work. They got their tools, their toolbox. And look at Bill Graham clapping his hands as he\u2019s walking up the steps. Jerry, you could see him smiling and nodding.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u00a9 Bob Minkin<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tI was at out at [Bob\u2019s] house shooting a cover story for Relix<\/em>. I was just alone there with [his wife] Natascha, because Bobby was out riding his bike. So Bobby came home, and he was like, \u201cAll right, let\u2019s do the photos.\u201d And I looked at Natascha, \u201cTell him to take a shower.\u201d So he took a shower. And I didn\u2019t mind waiting in his house. I was looking around. He lived there for a long time. That\u2019s where he moved [after] the Haight-Ashbury days, it\u2019s the same house. Anyway, so finally he was ready. We did some shots at his house, in his garden, but then he said, \u201cLet\u2019s go down the street. I\u2019ll show you where Natascha and I got married.\u201d The street ends in a cul-de-sac by redwood trees. And at the end of the cul-de-sac, through the trees, you could see the top of Mount Tamalpais. We went down there. He took his guitar. [His daughter] Monet, she was on his shoulders completely naked. I mean, she was a little girl. And he goes, \u201cYou hold my guitar.\u201d And we walked down the street and we stopped. He was telling me how he got this guitar. It was a George Benson model guitar, and he said he was at the factory where they made them. They were showing him this new one that they made for George Benson. And he took it, and he goes, \u201cI like this guitar. You can make him another one.\u201d He just took the guitar.<\/p>\n \t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBob Minkin<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tThis is Bobby and Natascha. They\u2019re all dolled up. They were on their way home from Neal Schon\u2019s wedding. This guitar he\u2019s holding is Jerry Garcia<\/a>\u2018s actual Wolf guitar. It rarely makes it out in public. The owner brought it. Bobby and Natascha only stopped by for five minutes. I\u2019m just glad I was there to get that. Even the shot of them without the guitar would\u2019ve been cool. But he happens to be holding the Wolf guitar, the first guitar I saw Jerry play. It was like, \u201cOh, my God, there it is.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u00a9 Bob Minkin<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n \n\tThat\u2019s at Sweetwater Music Hall in Mill Valley, which is really walking distance from his house. He played there a lot. And a lot of times these bands that played there with him were the first time they\u2019re playing together. I loved being there when he was there with somebody like Ramblin\u2019 Jack Elliott, because he loved Ramblin\u2019 Jack Elliott. He tells the famous story when he was a teenager, how he snuck into a Ramblin\u2019 Jack Elliott show. He climbed through a window, and fell through an open-door floor, and it was a whole story. He\u2019s sitting here with Jack and somebody said, \u201cSo how\u2019d you guys meet?\u201d That\u2019s all you need. And they\u2019re talking, and they\u2019re very animated, and I\u2019m up close, like click, click, click.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-rollingstone-2022\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
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