Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir, whose death was announced Jan. 10, was remembered with a celebration of life in San Francisco on Saturday.
The public event took place at Civic Center Plaza, and featured speeches by Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart and Dead & Company’s John Mayer. Also sharing their memories of Weir were Joan Baez, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, as well as Weir’s family, wife Natascha Weir and daughters Monet Weir and Chloe Weir.
“There was nothing like Bob Weir. … He was singular. He was not a copy of anything that came before. He was a true original,” Hart said, “I could sit here and tell you so many stories about our lives together. But at the heart of it all is that this was never just a band. It was a family.”
Hart also addressed the fans gathered, saying, “The songs of our lives are yours now, and it’s up to all of us to keep the refrain building. Love is real, not fade away.”
Mayer talked of all he learned from Weir over the decade they performed together, noting the rocker “changed my life.”
“Bob took a chance on me, he staked his entire reputation on my joining a band with him. He gave me musical community, he gave me this community,” Mayer said. “He invited me into the worlds he’d constructed, and he taught me what the songs meant and what it meant to perform them.”
Mayer added, “In return, I gave him everything I had night after night, year after year.”
The celebration also included recorded messages from musicians including Weir’s Grateful Dead bandmate Bill Kreutzmann, as well as Dave Matthews, Gov’t Mule‘s Warren Haynes, Willie Nelson, Phish‘s Trey Anastasio, Sammy Hagar and more.
The celebration ended with Mayer on guitar and vocals leading the fans in the Grateful Dead classic “Ripple.”
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