Bob Weir recently celebrated his 75th birthday, but there’s no sign of the legendary musician slowing down his long strange trip of sharing live music with the world. Bobby wasted little time upon taking the stage Wednesday, October 19th at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, NV. Along with his Wolf Bros and the Wolfpack horns and strings-10 musicians in total, the band immediately launched into a rousing “Iko Iko” engaging the crowd to clap and sing together with the ensemble.
Throughout the first set and show in its entirety, the greater outfit shifted. Some songs featured a stripped-down core of the Wolf Bros on stage, while others featured various members of the Wolfpack horns and strings. The result was a nice mixture of diverse sounds and nuanced takes on the timeless music of the Grateful Dead. It was refreshing to hear the music played in such a familiar, yet distinctly unique way as Bobby’s latest outfit provides.
Highlights from the first set include a beautiful “Lazy River Road”, showcasing striking solo tradeoffs from Bob, Barry Sless with his masterful work on the pedal steel guitar, and keyboard virtuoso Jeff Chimenti. During the “Loose Lucy”, Bob told the crowd he was going to turn it up a bit before leading the band from a slower, to a more up-beat tempo, before the set concluded with a gorgeous take on “Bird Song”. True to classic Grateful Dead style, this final offering of the set stretched out a bit in breath and patience with a notably rousing groove laid down by bassist Don Was and drummer Jay Lane.
Set two covered all sorts of interesting ground kicking off with a take on the Bob Dylan classic, “When I Paint My Masterpiece” paired with a lively version of “Deal”, which then went into “Salt Lake City.” The latter is a seldom-played tune from Bob’s second solo record, Heaven Help the Fool, that was played once by the Grateful Dead in Salt Lake City back on February 21, 1995.
“Silvio”> “Tequila” was up next, a pairing that often found its way into old Ratdog setlists. Of the many strong points featuring the Wolfpack horns and strings last evening, “He’s Gone” offered several moments where each of the five collective musicians was able to shine adding distinctive musical layers to the beloved song. A shout out to the lighting crew who also did a phenomenal job last night, especially during “He’s Gone” with the beloved “Steal your face right off your head” line where the lights took on the colors and pattern of the hallmark Steal Your Face logo. Nice work crew.
The next piece of the show was both a surprise and a highlight of the night. It was not a Bob Weir-penned tune nor a Grateful Dead song. It was a cover of the Beatles, “Tomorrow Never Knows” that showed that this band is capable of going from country-cowboy to rock and roll, and then full-on psychedelic all within a matter of a few songs. The rest of the set flowed seamlessly with “Going Down the Road Feeling Bad” picking up the beat where the cosmic flux had left the crowd in deep space from “Tomorrow Never Knows”, a stunning “Black Peter”, and a classic Bobby led “Sugan Magnolia” to bookend the set.
There are more than a few standout pieces from Reno to go back to for interested listeners, but “Tomorrow Never Knows” is the one that’s on its own. To hear his band be able to be so arcane with such ease was a brilliant display of musicianship, and a great nod to the wide pallet and genre-jumping embodied within the spirit of Grateful Dead music.
The band came back out for one encore last night, and fittingly, the first line of “Friend of the Devil” followed. “I lit out from Reno” was sung collectively and enjoyably sung by most everyone in the crowd as Bobby led his ensemble on the last tune of the night.
Photos by Brennan Lagasse
