Warren Haynes To Play Jerry Garcia’s Tiger Guitar At Red Rocks

On Monday, August 1, Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado will host a Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration on what would have been the late Grateful Dead guitarist’s 74th birthday. In celebration of the event, Warren Haynes will play Garcia’s iconic Doug Irwin guitar known as Tiger for the first time in public since the Dead’s final show in 1995.

Garcia first played Tiger on August 4, 1979 at the Oakland Auditorium in Oakland, California and it was in his hands for the “Box Of Rain” finale at Soldier Field in Chicago on July 9, 1995. In May, Indianapolis Colts owner and extensive guitar collector Jim Irsay – who purchased Tiger at an auction in 2002 – facilitated delivery of the instrument to Dead & Company during their Summer Tour rehearsals. The custom Irwin guitar made it to San Francisco Giants pitcher and musician Jake Peavy who was a force behind its trip west and took Tiger to Dead bassist Phil Lesh.

During an appearance with Bob Weir on Watch What Happens Live last month, Dead & Co. guitarist John Mayer indicated he had no desire to play Tiger. Mayer told host and Deadhead Andy Cohen, “With all the love in the world … It’s not necessarily a contact I want to make … I don’t know that I want to make contact with that part of it, it’s a little touchy for me and it’s just so damn heavy that guitar!”

Mayer was referring to Tiger’s hefty 13.5 pound weight, explained in the guitarist description at the official Garcia website, which states:

When Jerry asked Doug Irwin, immediately after receiving [Garcia’s first Irwin guitar] Wolf, to make another guitar, he told him, “don’t hold back.” He was told to make it the way he thought was best, and not worry about cost. Irwin obliged, and six years later Tiger hit the stage and became his most-played guitar. Named after the tiger inlay just below the tailpiece, the body features several layers of wood laminated together face-to-face in a configuration referred to as a “hippie sandwich.” The combination of heavy woods (cocobolo, vermilion, maple), plus solid brass binding and hardware resulted in a 13.5 lb. instrument.

Jerry loved Tiger for the wealth of sounds it gave him to play with. In one interview he said, “[There’s] like 12 discreet possible voices that are all pretty different … That gives me a lot of vocabulary of basically different tones. And that’s just the electronics; the rest of it is touch. I mostly work off the middle pickup…and I can get almost any sound I want out of that.”

Regular Jerry Garcia Band member, keyboardist Melvin Seals will join Warren and The Colorado Symphony for the show Monday at Red Rocks. Haynes will also be accompanied by drummer Jeff Sipe, bassist Lincoln Schleifer and vocalist Jasmine Muhammad. Seals and Garcia’s Jerry Garcia Band mate, vocalist Jaclyn LaBranch, will also be part of the ensemble. Tickets for the Red Rocks symphonic celebration are available via AXS.com.