St. Louis Post-Dispatch
November 12, 2003
by Terry Perkins
As an original member of the Grateful Dead, Bob Weir will always be associated with that legendary band. After the death of Jerry Garcia, Weir has continued to tour with subsequent incarnations of the group - from the Other Ones in the late 1990s to the current version, simply called the Dead.
But these days, Weir actually spends more time touring with his own band, RatDog, than he does with the Dead. In 2003, RatDog has played in England and Japan, done a week's worth of gigs on the West Coast in February and completed a monthlong U.S. tour in the spring. The band members are now in the midst of a six-week American tour that will bring them to the Pageant this Saturday and to the Blue Note in Columbia, Mo., on Monday.
"At this point, we do two bigger tours a year in the spring and fall, and work in other dates around the Dead schedule," Weir explains during a conversation on a rare day off.
Weir has been attracted to solo and side-band efforts since 1972, when he released "Ace," backed primarily by members of the Grateful Dead. But subsequent bands such as Kingfish, Bobby & the Midnights and duo concerts with bassist Rob Wasserman helped Weir establish his own musical identity.
With RatDog, which was formed in 1995 and has had virtually the same lineup since 1998 (Robin Sylvester replaced Wasserman on bass earlier this year), Weir has a band that can play the music he chooses. The players have the intuitive rapport to take the music in any direction at any time - a Grateful Dead trademark.
"Given the nature of what we play, it's good to have a bunch of guys you're familiar with and you know how to work with," Weir says. "So far on this tour, the music has been hot, I'll say that."
As you might expect from a member of the original jam band, Weir seems to go out of his way to make sure each and every RatDog set is different. He puts together a set list for every show, taking into account what the band played the previous night and what was played the last time it appeared in that city, but the show always seems to veer in interesting, unexpected directions.
For example, a check of recent RatDog set lists on fan Web sites reveals a mix of Dead classics, Dylan tunes such as "Maggie's Farm" and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," blues songs such as "Little Red Rooster" and even a medley that rolls the Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows" into the early Pink Floyd song "Matilda Mother."
"Due to my schedule with the Dead this summer, we just didn't have a lot of time to write a bunch this year," Weir says. "So we worked up some outside stuff people might not be expecting to hear."
There could be more unexpected musical combinations in the future for Weir. He has recently played with such jazz musicians as saxophonist Greg Osby and trumpeter Nicholas Payton, and he would like to work with the Kronos Quartet, a group that blends works by contemporary classical composers with arrangements of tunes by Bo Diddley and Jimi Hendrix.
"I had the chance to play with Kronos a few years ago at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and it occurred to me those folks could play electric instruments just as well as acoustic," he says. "There might be a real interesting thing we could do by adding an electronica musician, as well as Nicholas Payton and a trombone player we recently worked with, Josh Roseman. We could do some interesting things over a series of nights."
One familiar musical face can be expected to sit in with RatDog at the Pageant: legendary St. Louis pianist Johnnie Johnson, who has toured with RatDog in the past.
"I just spoke to Johnnie yesterday," Weir says, "and he'll definitely be there."