Revisiting Grateful Dead’s Phil Lesh & Bob Weir’s Only Duo Tour

“We’re going to reinvent these tunes,” Lesh said ahead of the tour with Weir. “We can’t do them the way the Grateful Dead did them. We don’t have a band. The idea is to reinvent as many of the tunes as possible.”

After opening the tour with the Grateful Dead staple “Uncle John’s Band,” Bobby and Phil’s second selection was “Operator,” one of the few Grateful Dead songs credited solely to late co-founding keyboardist Ron “Pigpen” McKernan. “Operator” was one of several deeper Dead cuts pulled out over the course of the tour, with others like “Alligator” and “Mountains Of The Moon,” and the latter-career favorite “Lazy River Road,” also getting into the mix. Notably, “Operator,” has not yet been played by Dead & Company.

The opening night, second-song selection of “Operator” lead to some lighthearted and enlightening banter between Bobby and Phil:

Bobby: It occurs to me, that we never got around to rehearsing the end of that one – or a whole lot of other things.

Phil: You’d never really know it, would you?

Bobby: Now these tunes, every one of these tunes means a little something different to everyone here – including us.

Phil: So we’re going to try to do as many versions of each individual tune as possible at the same time.

While Wally Ingram’s appearance on the opening night of the tour was a surprise, and there would be additional guests each of the subsequent shows, night two’s extended collaboration with Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio was among the biggest highlights of the tour.

Anastasio sat in for the entire second set and encore, adding his signature tone to an array of Grateful Dead classics. The seamless “Dark Star” into “Jack Straw” into “Eyes Of The World” back into “Dark Star” was exemplary of the musical bond they have forged over the years.

Daniel Lanois’ song “The Maker” became part of the Jerry Garcia Band’s live repertoire in the early-1990s, but was never covered by the Grateful Dead in concert. When Bobby and Phil played their first duo show in Boston, they were joined during the second set by Ingram, guitarist Larry Campbell and vocalist Terresa Williams (who would also appear during the second set of the remaining shows on the tour.

During the second set of the first concert at The Wang Theatre, Bobby and Phil and their accompanying guests took on “The Maker.” The song that’s been covered by many other artists and is frequently played by Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros was performed once more at the final night of the Bobby and Phil duo tour.

Like the “Operator” performed on opening night, the obscure Grateful Dead song “Rosemary” appearing on night two in Boston was anything but expected. There is only one known public performance of the Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter compilation by the Grateful Dead, at a show in 1968. The band included a recording of the haunting song on their 1969 album, Aoxomoxoa.

When “Rosemary” made its unexpected appearance during the second set on night two in Boston, it was encapsulated by another Aoxomoxoa rarity, the Lesh-sung “Mountains Of The Moon.”

Given the stripped-down format of the tour, Bobby and Phil’s performances were heavily focused on highlighting the incredible songs within the Grateful Dead songbook. Given the shows featured members of the Grateful Dead, there was also plenty of improvisation infused into the concerts.

“Dark Star,” the Grateful Dead’s seminal jam vehicle, fulfilled its exploratory role at the penultimate show of the tour, the first of two concerts in Chicago. Based on the official nugs.net song timings for the entire tour, the +20-minute “Dark Star” at the Chicago Theatre clocked the longest of the six shows. Coupled with the 16-minute “Estimated Prophet” in the first set, plenty of jam was spread across each set.

In the years following Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995, the song “Days Between,” which he co-wrote with Robert Hunter, became an anthem for Deadheads reflecting on memories of the past. An unofficial term for the span of time marking Garcia’s August 1 birthday and the anniversary of his August 9 death, “Days Between” carries a heavy nostalgia, particularly when played by former members of the Grateful Dead.

The second set on the second night at the Chicago Theatre – which like night one featured Ingram, Campbell, Williams and Weir’s Dead & Company bandmate, keyboardist Jeff Chimenti – offered the tour’s only “Days Between.” Saved for the final song of set two and sung by Bobby, the haunting refrain resonated throughout the theater with the shared mileage between he and Lesh informing the moving performance.