John Mayer paid tribute to Bob Weir, Grateful Dead cofounder and his bandmate for a decade in Dead and Co., in a short but heartfelt tribute posted late Sunday.
“Okay Bob. I’ll do it your way,” Mayer wrote on social media. “Fkn’ A… Thanks for letting me ride alongside you. It sure was a pleasure. If you say it’s not the end, then I’ll believe you. I’ll meet you in the music. Come find me anytime.”
Weir’s death, due to underlying lung issues after a battle with cancer, was announced on Saturday. He was 78.
While seemingly an unlikely pair of collaborators — Mayer, while a world-class guitarist, was better known as a pop artist and was 30 years younger than Weir — the two performed together for a decade. They first united when Mayer was guest-hosting “The Late Late Show” and invited Weir to join him for a performance on the show. He went on to join Dead and Co., the latest and probably final incarnation of the Grateful Dead following the death of frontman and cofounder Jerry Garcia in 1995, and perform multiple tours with the group, which also featured Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart, its founding and longtime drummers, respectively.
Dead and Co. finished what was billed a farewell tour in July 2023, but played well-reviewed residencies at the Las Vegas Sphere in the following two years. The group’s final public performance with Weir took placed last August with three shows in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park — in the neighborhood that spawned the Grateful Dead in 1965 — to celebrate the group’s 60th anniversary. The group also performed at the MusiCares gala celebration during Grammy Week last year, where they were honored as Persons of the Year (pictured above).
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