Red Mosquito

John Mayer wrote:Today marks a year since Dead and Company played our last of three shows in Golden Gate Park helping to celebrate 60 years of Grateful Dead. It would also become Bob Weir’s last appearance onstage. I wanted to take a moment to share with you just how incredible those concerts really were. Bobby’s insistence on standing on that stage in the midst of a complex health battle to perform nine hours of music over three nights was one of the greatest acts of heroism I will ever see in my lifetime. I watched him sidestep every traditional burden of entertainers - ego, superficial pride, vanity, to name a few - and sing his songs with pure heart and grit. He transcended his physical limitations by ignoring them. Bobby Weir, ever the contrarian, laid down his ultimate act of defiance; he was going to play these shows on his terms. He could have explained his situation in one online post, and the crowd would have lifted him like a giant wave up to glory. Fuck that. That wasn’t Bobby. Deal the cards. By the end of Sunday night, we’d created as many musical sparks as we ever had over a three night run. What he had to overcome in order to pull that off won’t ever be fully known to anyone. Some of the songs Bobby would play for the last time were shared with artists he loved and respected, Billy Strings, #sturgillsimpson, Grahame Lesh and Trey Anastasio, and they’ve come to serve as a spiritual transfer. A blur between past, present and future. Like it’s always been. To use his own term, those three nights were the star in Bob Weir’s heavenly crown. The man you loved, whose music has given a more expansive inner life to us all, never backed down. In his final shows, after 60 years, he lived up to every measure of a person he’d ever stood for. It’s a master class of a life lesson, and I’ll take it with me forever.