John Mayer delivered an emotional rendition of “Ripple” as well as a heartfelt eulogy for the late Bob Weir at a public memorial for the Grateful Dead guitarist on Saturday in San Francisco.
Taking the stage at the Civic Center Plaza celebration in front of thousands of Dead Heads, Mayer opened his eulogy by noting that he and Weir, his friend and Dead & Company band mate, were born on the same day (October 16) 30 years apart (1947 and 1977).
“In the 30 years that preceded me, Bob had become a countercultural icon. I was a child of the 1980s. I come from a world of structural thinking, the concept, the theorizing, the reassessing, the perfecting,” Mayer said. “Bob learned early on that spirit, heart, soul, curiosity, and fearlessness was the path to glory. We both found success with each of our templates, and then we found each other.”
Mayer then talked about joining Dead & Company, and how that gig turned into a friendship with the Weir family.
“Over the course of a decade, we came to trust each other,” Mayer said of Weir. “He taught me, among many other things, to trust in the moment, and I’d like to think I taught him a little bit to rely on a plan, not as a substitute for the divine moments, but as a way to lure them in a little closer. I guess maybe what I was really doing was showing him he could rely on me. Bob took a chance on me. He staked his entire reputation on my joining a band with him. He gave me musical community, he gave me this community.” Mayer then broke into tears as the Deadheads saluted him.
“He lent me his songbook, invited me into the worlds he’d constructed, and taught me what the songs meant and what it meant to perform them,” Mayer continued. “In return, I gave him everything I had night after night, year after year.”
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Mayer closed out his eulogy by saying, “There are a lot of Grateful Dead lyrics that give comfort at a time like this, but the line I find myself thinking about the most is from a Leon Russell song called ‘A Song for You.’ I’d like to think I can hear Bobby saying these words to us all this afternoon: ‘But now I’m so much better, so if my words don’t come together, listen to the melody because my love is in there hiding.’ And so we will all keep listening together.”
Mayer was then joined onstage by Weir’s friends, family, and band mates — including the Dead’s Mickey Hart, Dead & Company’s Jeff Chimenti and Oteil Burbridge, and more — for the memorial-closing rendition of the American Beauty classic “Ripple,” a song seldom-performed live (by their standards) by the Grateful Dead but a perfect send-off for the event:
