THROUGH THE LENS: Dead & Company, Tyler Childers, and Other Photos of the Week

This week is a hybrid of sorts. Included are photos by 15 ND photographers from three festivals, Red Wings Roots Festival, The Peach Music Festival, and Wind Grass Bluegrass Festival, as well as from concerts by perennial favorites such as Tyler Childers, Jason Isbell, and boygenius. But let’s focus, in text, on Jim Brock’s appreciation of the long strange trip that began with The Grateful Dead in 1965 and ended this summer as Dead & Company with Bob Weir.

In his introduction of Weir at the 2016 AmericanaFest, Jed Hilly, executive director of the Americana Music Association, said, “In all likelihood, without the Grateful Dead and without Bob Weir, there would not be an Americana community.” While that could be taken as hyperbole, to those of us in the Country Music Hall of Fame’s performance hall that afternoon it was a statement of fact.

With members grounded in roots music, the once psychedelic band soon morphed into a group that celebrated roots music while mixing in jazz-like improvisations. With no two shows alike, The Dead pushed the music further and redefined what could be considered to be rock music. Along the way they became not just the premiere roots-rock band but the greatest of all American bands. If there is any doubt in your mind, I suggest you watch the 2017 documentary Long Strange Trip. 

Dead & Company by Jim Brock 

The Grateful Dead cracked my world open when I was practically a child (okay, I was 15), and I have not been the same since. I’ve been to my share of Dead shows, drinking often from the chalice of their late ’70s heyday. I was at the closing of San Francisco’s famed Winterland Ballroom on New Year’s Eve 1978, where they headlined. My college of choice, University of California, Santa Cruz, coincidentally became the repository for The Grateful Dead Archive. I am a definite Deadhead.

When Jerry Garcia died 28 years ago I cried like I lost a family member. Would the music really never stop? Would the consciousness-bending experience that transcended sound be lost forever? Through iterations and offshoots, through many “tribute” bands and so many other original voices in the jamband scene, every Deadhead has been chasing that dragon since 1995. To get back to the garden, to get a taste again, to feel that way again.

The year 2017 saw the the unlikely coming together of the uber-talented guitarist, songwriter, and sometimes pop star John Mayer with three of the four remaining members of the original band — Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, and Mickey Hart — along with former Allman Brothers bassist Oteil Burbridge and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti (from Weir’s band, RatDog) to form Dead & Company.

The band toured every year since, filling arenas and stadiums. Garcia’s absence was still the proverbial elephant in the room, but also a guiding spirit. Like with their progenitor, there were off nights and better nights. But there was also something new, not heard before. Much of it springing from Mayer’s impassioned dive into the Dead’s musical canon and his jubilant chemistry with Chimenti. 

While there was emulation and admiration in Mayer’s playing, on recent tours, he has been fine just being himself, residing within and breaking free of the tunes, sometimes bluesy, but not very Jerry. Ironically, however, that’s been a good thing. 

I may just be one Deadhead among many, but I think the legion would agree that something clicked on this final tour. The band found its collective voice. Even with the last-minute absence of Kreutzmann (replaced by another RatDog bandmate, Jay Lane), this was a band that dug deep to find new curves and new life, tune after tune, show after show. There were Weir’s fresh vocal turns, new arrangements, Chimenti’s jazzy spins, new waves breaking on new shores. And a poignancy that hung over every gig.

The final tour went from coast to coast, beginning on May 19 in Los Angeles and roving across the heartland until returning home to the Bay Area to say fare thee well on July 14, 15, and 16. This was not just nostalgia for a final gathering of the tribe; rather, it was a celebration of what we feel now. For those of us who have taken this long strange trip with the band it was a reminder of what’s always possible, along with substantial gratitude for having been along on the journey.

Click on any photo below to view the gallery as a full-size slideshow.