Poughkeepsie Journal
October 24, 2003
by John W. Barry
Like a magician waving a wand, he could set more than 10,000 screaming by simply throwing a finger in the air. On his cue -- a growl or shriek that could elicit cheers or condescending laughter -- tens of thousands of feet would shuffle in time, dragging along with them legs and arms and minds handed over freely in a religious quest for a magical moment that would have to last a year or a month or a week -- or until the next city and the next Grateful Dead concert.
Jerry Garcia might have been the Grateful Dead's wise old wizard with guitar licks that sliced through a listener with the precision of a surgeon and the intuition of a shaman. But it was rhythm guitarist Bob Weir who served as the scene's electrical ground, maintaining the surge of power while always keeping one foot on dry land.
''There was nothing better than when Bobby stepped up to the mike and just screamed,'' said Dave Borden of Rifton, who saw his first Grateful Dead concert in 1968.
Weir regularly performed straight-ahead and sometimes monotonous blues songs and bouncy tunes about cowboys like the ones he heard on the radio as a kid. He also crooned from deep within his gut over broken hearts, playing choppy rhythm guitar all the while and co-writing original songs that rivaled the spirit of Woody Guthrie's finest work.
Differing styles
Weir's style contrasted sharply with Garcia's leanings toward introspective, haunting melodies and complex chord progressions.
But the Grateful Dead would not have existed were it not for that which this duo shared -- the devotion each had to their relationship with the other.
''A dear friend, a big brother more than anything,'' Weir said of Garcia during a recent telephone interview. ''I suppose he was something of a mentor, but I never saw him as that.''
You can check Weir out on Sunday night, when he brings his six-piece jazz and blues ensemble, RatDog, to the Bardavon 1869 Opera House in Poughkeepsie. RatDog, from many accounts, has taken a new direction since long-time bass player Rob Wasserman was replaced earlier this year by new member Robin Sylvester.
Tonight and Saturday, Weir & RatDog will play the Beacon Theater in Manhattan.
You will on Sunday almost certainly hear new originals, traditional standards and Grateful Dead songs, including a rather jazzy twist on one song that is fairly obscure to the general public but revered as holy scripture by Deadheads.
Performed live, ''Estimated Prophet'' captured all of Weir's onstage ego but also gave Garcia a set of chord progressions against which he could deliver the goods as the signature soloist he was. The genesis of this song can be traced back to one of the thousands of anonymous hotels where the Dead have stayed while on the road over decades.
''When we were traveling, we'd go through the Bible,'' Weir recalled. ''You would pull out the Gideon Bible. During dull moments -- you break out the Bible and read that.''
One night after the show and post-show parties had ended, after everyone had gone to bed, Weir got a phone call in his hotel room.
''It's Jerry,'' Weir said, laughing. ''He said, 'Hey man, read this. Tell me what you think of this.' ''
Garcia had stumbled across the books of Daniel and Ezekiel in the Old Testament and was apparently so jazzed by what he had read that he felt compelled to share them with Weir.
Both were dazzled by the passages, narratives that Weir believed were relaying, in part, the journeys of alien beings to Earth during Biblical times.
''You get into some pretty hairy stuff ... four floating heads, wings, surrounded by a wing of fire,'' Weir said of the Bible.
Inspired, Weir shared the passages with his lyricist, John Perry Barlow, and the result became a staple of live performances for nearly two decades, in addition to the opening track on the Dead's 1977 album, ''Terrapin Station.''
''Standing on the beach/The sea will part before me, (Fire wheel burnin' in the air),'' go the lyrics. ''You will follow me/And we will ride to glory, (Way up, in the middle of the air.) And I'll call down thunder and speak the same/As my words fill the sky with flame./Might and Glory's gonna be my name./They gonna light my way.''
''I took up music to begin with because it does something that words by themselves can't do,'' Weir said. ''It takes you to a place that words by themselves can't take you to. That said, for most folks, it's experiencing the moment and when they leave that moment, they just know it's there and they know they can go back there in another concert. Or maybe it will come their way in another experience. But there are some folks who aren't prepared to leave that moment and try to take that with them and these are the folks that are walking a very, very perilous path, because ... if you can't let go of that moment ... those people are the acid burnouts who are trying to live in that moment or keep it always and they miss the appreciation, the beauty of the moment -- that it is fleeting. And they think they can live there -- that's something you can't have, it's elusive. If you spend your time trying to reconnect with it rather than being open to visiting it every now and again, you're basically chasing your tail. If there is a message in 'Estimated Prophet,' that's it.''
Weir knows plenty about seizing the moment -- away from his five bandmates in the Grateful Dead and the thousands of fans who followed the band endlessly around the country.
There was the Dead show on April 7, 1987, when Weir was the only member of the band who didn't deliver his part on one of his own songs, ''Hell in a Bucket'' -- and he was the one who should have been singing -- as the first verse began. After a train wreck false start in front of 20,000 fans at the Meadowlands Arena in New Jersey, the entire band, including Weir, performed flawlessly.
Another memorable moment occurred on Sept. 24, 1994, during a concert at the Berkeley Community Theater in California by a pared down, acoustic version of the Grateful Dead. Weir purposefully pulled a cord out of his guitar, sending a very loud, horrific crackle through the theater's public address system, eliciting moans and groans from the audience.
''I left home on the Prankster bus,'' Weir said of the infamous bus on which Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters rode around the country during the 1960s, including through Millbrook. ''I was 17, maybe 18. One thing that I've learned for sure is that over the years on the road you keep it entertaining -- as a major accomplishment. You want to keep it entertaining.''
Borden said Weir's ''entertaining side'' is part of his draw.
''Bobby is like the class clown,'' he said. ''You never know what he's going to do.''
Along with moments considered amusing by some and irritating by others came the magic nights, when Weir, Garcia and bass player Phil Lesh would seemingly come together -- by some unspoken cue -- in a solitary musical moment forged out of complete dissonant chaos, causing a hockey arena full of fans to erupt.
''We would talk about it in the van on the way back to the hotel,'' Weir said. ''We would talk about that stuff and, typically, one of us would say, 'Next time that happens I'll try to be there with this.' We would sort of make plans -- sometimes those plans would come to fruition.''
These days, those moments must be found outside of the Grateful Dead, with RatDog or perhaps in The Dead, the revamped lineup created early this year with each surviving band member from the Grateful Dead and some new additions. Weir said he experiences the Grateful Dead as a member of The Dead.
''For the most part, yeah,'' he said. ''What we get out of The Dead in the future -- it's a work in progress.''
But the thread linking all for Weir is performing live.
''For me, it's yoga,'' he said. ''That's when I'm merging with the divine. ... I live for the moment we achieve liftoff. For me, I become weightless.''