Days Between: Bob Weir Still Finds Ways To Let The Music Grow At Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre (SHOW REVIEW)

There’s a spotlight over Bob Weir and his silver mane. He stands in front of dozens of Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra members and the Wolf Bros, but he’s in a space of his own as he looks out into the Auditorium Theater on November 18th, 2024, and sings:

There were days, and there were days/ And there were days between/ Summer flies and August dies/ The world grows dark and mean

It’s a heavy time in Grateful Dead land. No one knows this better than Weir, one of the group’s last men standing. 

Bassist Phil Lesh just died. Steve Silberman, one of the band’s longtime documenters, died in late August. Drummer Bill Kreutzman’s musical activity is winding down. Dead & Company may or may not be done, but it’s certainly not touring city to city anymore.

Weir, standing in front of thousands of fans, some wearing smiles, some solemn faces, surely knows he’s no exception to the rules of time. 

Comes the shimmer of the moon/ On black infested trees/ The singing man is at his song/ The holy on their knees

If you didn’t know any of that — if you just showed up to the Auditorium a complete stranger to the Dead’s music and members, and you listened to a stoic Weir reflectively singing “Days Between,” with the orchestra providing a deep, contemplative musical backdrop — you’d likely be able to figure out that, below the surface, Weir was doing far more than just singing a song. 

Perhaps the Grateful Dead’s last masterpiece, “Days Between,” documents the band’s days from the beginning to what appeared to be its imminent end at the time of its composition. Robert Hunter was famously reluctant to illuminate his song’s meanings or purposes. But intentionally or not, he wrote a song that grows in scope every day, every time it’s played through. Cross off a day on the calendar, and you have another day between. 

The reckless are out wrecking/ The timid plead their pleas/ No one knows much more of this/ Than anyone can see

The growing number of days contains good memories. They may account for some of the tears that fall at the Auditorium Theater as Weir sings. There is certainly a lot of sadness and catharsis in the theater. 

Lesh’s death is now contained in the days between. Silberman’s death fits into them. So do Deadheads’ own, private moments: a loved one’s death, youthful memories. And so, too, does every passing day of Weir’s continuous adventure, now nearly 30 years after the Grateful Dead’s last show, to find where the Dead’s music best fits. 

There were days, and there were days/ And there were days besides/ When phantom ships with phantom sails/ Set to sea on phantom tides

Does the music fit here?

The Grateful Dead’s scope is indisputably epic, and what’s more epic than an orchestra? The Dead and its songbook have become increasingly revered musical institutions, and isn’t that what we trust orchestras to present?

Here’s what happens at the show: The orchestra provides pummeling, deep accents in Black Throated Wind and joins the Wolf Bros for a rocking crescendo behind screaming horns. It weaves in and out of the full Terrapin Station suite, offering rushing, climatic color to Jay Lane’s drums as we head deep into the suite. It gives a full, shimmering sound to Playing In The Band.

And then there’s Uncle John’s Band. The orchestra rises and falls, and there’s a horn solo, and then Weir stops singing and the band stops playing as the audience takes over, loudly singing the final verse — an impromptu musical trade that the orchestra applauds and Weir acknowledges with a bow.

Yes, the music fits.

Comes the lightning of the sun/ On bright unfocused eyes / The blue of yet another day/ A springtime wet with sighs

The genius of the Dead spirit is the desire and ability to morph the music into the mood of the day and of the listener. In the 1960s, the Dead played unrelenting psychedelia. After Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew arrival, the Dead incorporated jazzy elements. Later in the 1970s, the Dead leaned into disco. And on the band went. 

Let’s admit it: Things have slowed down. Weir isn’t climbing the speaker stacks during Sugar Magnolia anymore. 

A hopeful candle lingers/ In the land of lullabies/ Where headless horsemen vanish/ With wild and lonely cries

The orchestra is a relatively new vision for Weir. It probably was not conceived as a guaranteed success because nothing in the Dead universe was. The fans can debate its merits, and the archivists can choose what to do with the recordings in the decades to come.

Orchestral music isn’t improvised like the Grateful Dead’s live shows. At the Chicago show, the orchestra members mostly played the notes on the sheet before them. 

But orchestras improvise in another way, just like the Dead: An orchestra can adjust tempo and volume at the conductor’s whim, reacting to the music and the crowd. It can feed off the energy surrounding them, suiting its music to fill the theater, and create something new. 

There were days, and there were days/ And there were days I know/ When all we ever wanted/ Was to learn and love and grow

I know what excitement and joy feel and look like at a live concert, and the Auditorium Theater was filled with both. I know neither feeling can gush out if the music isn’t inviting it, and on Nov. 18, the music welcomed all of it.

Case in point: During a quiet concert moment, a fan member screamed in excitement. Somebody shushed that person, but other screams rapidly overwhelmed that caution, and the entire venue awoke. And the band gave back. And the crowd welcomed it all.

Once we grew into our shoes/ We told them where to go/ Walked halfway around the world/ On promise of the glow

I was alive for less than a year before Jerry Garcia died. The silver lining in being too young to have seen the Grateful Dead is I get to see all the surviving members’ spin-off groups. 

I’ve had some moments of regret that I didn’t get to see the Grateful Dead. But on Nov. 18, and still today, that fact is irrelevant.

Because there, under a spotlight, was a living, breathing, singing Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead playing with a fucking orchestra. And some time between my tears and my smiles at that show came the thought that this experience was close to the peak of my concert-going life and that there was some tiny but tangible chance that Weir held it in a similar regard as a performer. 

Imagine: Weir is 77 and started all of this nearly 60 years ago. He has not experienced adulthood without a guitar near him, more than a few days away from being played.

Stood upon a mountain top/ Walked barefoot in the snow/ Gave the best we had to give/ How much we’ll never know

There’s a verse left of “Days Between.” But the life of the song isn’t done. 

Weir is still playing lights-out music to the masses, finding new ways for the music to grow and new places in the American consciousness for the music to find a home. There’s some gas left in the tank. Maybe not a lot, but certainly enough for another verse.