John Mayer mourned his Dead & Co. bandmate and fellow Libra Bob Weir on Saturday. “Bob took a chance on me,” he said at Weir’s San Francisco memorial. “He staked his entire reputation on my joining a band with him. He gave me musical community, he gave me this community.” News of the Grateful Dead co-founder’s death broke January 11. Since then, tributes have come from Deadheads both famous and non-. Mayer addressed the larger Dead community, saying “When tours would end, you would come home, dump out on your couch, and sleep for two days straight. I would do the same. I could feel the connection we shared together, all of us tired and weary, our hearts so full of music and memories, waiting on the next bit of chatter that it could all happen again. When we played multiple nights in the same city, the afternoons in between felt as if we were suspended in a dream, waiting to become reanimated as soon as the first note of the next show would play. You might have gone to work and your colleagues wouldn’t understand why you were only half there; it’s because the other half of you was still at the venue, ready to become whole again by the music. I felt the same.”
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Thousands gathered in San Francisco’s Civic Center to mourn Bobby Weir, according to the Associated Press. Joan Baez was also on stage, performing “Ripple” with Mayer, the Weir family, and Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart.
Mayer shouted out “the countless musicians who have shared a stage with Bobby.” Those musicians include Brandi Carlile, Maggie Rogers, Trey Anastasio, Les Claypool, and Sammy Hagar. “I share in this sadness with you,” he said while tearing up. “To have played behind him is to know how the songs go.” You can watch Mayer’s full eulogy below.
