SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Thousands of people gathered at the San Francisco Civic Center on Saturday to celebrate the life of legendary guitarist and Grateful Dead founding member Bob Weir, who died last week at age 78.
After four Buddhist monks opened the event with a prayer in Tibetan, musicians Joan Baez and John Mayer spoke on a makeshift stage in front of the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. Fans brought long-stemmed red roses and placed some on altars filled with photos and candles. They wrote notes on colored paper expressing their love and thanking him for his journey.
Several people asked him to say hello to singer/guitarist Jerry Garcia and bass guitarist Phil Lesh, also founding members who preceded him in death. Garcia died in 1995; Lesh died in 2024.
“I’m here to celebrate Bob Weir,” said Ruthie Garcia, a Jerry fan since 1989. “To celebrate him and help bring him home.”
Saturday’s festivities drew crowds of fans with long braids and tie-dye outfits, some using walkers. But there are also young couples, men in their 20s and a father with a 6-year-old son, aiming to pass on a love of live music and the tight-knit Deadhead community to the next generation.
The Bay Area native joined the Grateful Dead (originally the Warlocks) in San Francisco in 1965 when he was just 17 years old. He wrote or co-wrote and sang lead vocals on Dead classics, including “Sugar Magnolia,” “One More Saturday Night” and “Mexicali Blues.” Although he sported a long beard like Garcia in his later years, he was generally considered not as unkempt as other band members.
The Dead played blues, jazz, country, folk and psychedelia in lengthy jam sessions. Their concerts attracted a cult following of the Dead, who followed them on tour. Decades after Garcia’s death, the band continued to perform and, along with John Mayer, evolved into Dead & Company.
Darla Sagos took an early flight from Seattle on Saturday morning to join the public mourning. She said she suspected something was wrong when no new shows were announced after Dead & Company played three nights in San Francisco last summer. This is unusual because his calendar often shows where he will play next.
“We hope everything goes well and we get more music from him,” she said. “But we’re going to keep playing music, all of us and everyone who’s going to play.”
Sagos and her husband, Adam Sagos, have a one-year-old grandson who has known music since he was a child.
Will’s death on January 10 was announced in a statement on his Instagram account. The statement said he beat cancer but died from underlying lung problems. His wife and two daughters attended Saturday’s event.
Daughter Monet Weir said his death was sudden and unexpected but he always hoped the legacy of the music and the deceased would outlast him.
She said he believed American music could unite.
“The show must go on,” Monet Weir said.
