Watch Bob Weir & Brent Mydland’s Rare ‘Hey Jude’ Duet At Wavy Gravy’s 50th Birthday Party

Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir has intersected with the music of The Beatles in various ways throughout his storied career. Weir and the Dead covered several of The Beatles‘ songs and some have been played live by Dead & Company.

In 2016, Weir shared the stage with The Beatles’ Paul McCartney, though the sit-in was absent any of The Beatles’ songs played by the Dead, Dead & Co. or Weir’s other outfits like RatDog. Earlier this year, at Dead & Company’s final show of The Final Tour, the band played a truncated “Hey Jude” in the same fashion the Grateful Dead did in the 1980s and 1990s.

First appearing in Grateful Dead setlists in 1985 and commonly referred to as “Hey Jude Reprise,” both the Grateful Dead and Dead & Co. paired the singalong ending of The Beatles song with Traffic’s “Dear Mr. Fantasy.” Those abbreviated versions of “Hey Jude Reprise,” were not the only times the Grateful Dead played the song.

As previously explored, the Grateful Dead covered “Hey Jude” in full on February 11, 1969, and again on March 1, 1969, which were the only instances of the band covering The Beatles with co-founding keyboardist Ron “Pigpen” McKernan before his untimely death in 1973. Another complete performance of “Hey Jude,” sung by late keyboardist Brent Mydland, occurred during the Grateful Dead’s March 22, 1990 show at Copps Coliseum in Hamilton, Canada.

Another instance of Weir and Mydland performing a complete version of “Hey Jude” happened on May 15, 1986 at a concert for the 50th birthday of counter-culture icon and noted activist, poet and clown, Wavy Gravy.

Weir and Mydland’s Grateful Dead bandmates, Jerry Garcia (performing with bassist John Kahn) and Mickey Hart were also on the lineup at the celebratory concert held at the Berkeley Community Theater in Berkeley, California.

Weir’s solo set began with the Bobby And The Midnites’ tune “Festival.” Singer-songwriter Cat McLean emerged to sing “My Blue Tears,” a song by Dolly Parton that Weir first performed with Kingfish in the mid-1970s. Next came Weir’s solo offerings of “This Time Forever,” an original co-written with John Perry Barlow and recorded for Weir’s 1978 solo album, Heaven Help The Fool. Weir then delivered latter-day Grateful Dead staples “Victim Or The Crime” and “Throwing Stones.”

Mydland then came on to the Berkeley Community Theater stage to play piano for a duet with Weir on a complete performance of The Beatles’ “Hey Jude.”

Watch Weir’s almost full solo set (“This Time Forever” is cut) including The Beatles duet with Brent via the video below: