Bob Weir, the quiet singer, songwriter, and skilled rhythm guitarist, who was sometimes called the "other" original member of the Grateful Dead, passed away. His family shared the news on Instagram on Saturday. He was 78 years old.
They said he "passed away peacefully, surrounded by loved ones, after bravely fighting cancer, as only Bobby could.
Unfortunately, he eventually succumbed to lung problems," they explained.
He was diagnosed with cancer in July, but he returned to his hometown stage just a month later for a three-night event celebrating 60 years of music at Golden Gate Park.
His family added: "Bobby will always be a guiding force, whose unique artistry changed American music.
His work did more than just play music; it brought warmth and light into people's lives, building a sense of community, a shared language, and a feeling of family that fans have carried for generations. Every chord he played, every word he sang, was part of the stories he created. His music invited people to feel, to question, to wander, and to belong."
As the leader of bands like Dead and Company, Phil Lesh and Friends, Further, Rat Dog, and Wolf Bros, Weir continued the legacy of the Grateful Dead after the sudden death of his bandmate Jerry Garcia in 1995.
In a 2014 interview with Vanity Fair, when asked if he "still takes psychedelics, once in a while?"
the upcoming rock star replied: "Not much. Every now and then. I haven't done it so much lately, but over the last ten years, if one of the bands I'm hanging with, and all the guys want to take mushrooms, I'm not going to … you know, I'll go there. But not a whole lot."
Weir and lead guitarist Garcia formed the Grateful Dead in 1965 with Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (keyboards, harmonica), Lesh (bass), and Bill Kreutzmann (drums).
Weir wrote or sang on songs like "Sugar Magnolia," "Playing in the Band," "Truckin'," "Throwing Stones," "Let It Grow," "I Need a Miracle," "One More Saturday Night," "Let It Rain," "Mexicali Blues," "Hell in a Bucket," "Cassidy," and "The Other One," to name just a few.
The last one, which appeared on the Dead's second album, 1968's Anthem of the Sun, became one of Weir's most popular songs.
A 2014 documentary about him, directed by Mike Fleiss, was titled The Other One: The Long Strange Trip of Bob Weir. It was executive produced by Justin Kreutzmann (Bill's son) and premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.
In the film, Weir said he "took LSD, every Saturday without fail, for about a year," and he served as Garcia's "bag man," keeping and passing out the drugs.
With Weir's boyish style filling in between Garcia's upbeat guitar work and Lesh's innovative bass lines, the Grateful Dead — the most famous jam band of all time — toured for long stretches, playing improvisational, psychedelic shows that lasted for hours, much to the delight of the tie-dyed Deadheads.
In an interview published in March 1973, Weir told Cameron Crowe about how the group built its free-form shows.
"We have certain numbers that we use for certain pivot points, of course," he said.
"We have the crowd pleasers for the end. A little bit into the second set, you can expect us to do a number that we're gonna stretch out on … for like 45 minutes or an hour. And you can expect us to pull out of that with some fairly forceful rock 'n' roll just to shake out the cobwebs of the people that are … well, we space out on the space-out numbers, and if we may be losing some of our audience at that point, we bring them back with a little rock 'n' roll.
We try to take the numbers that we stretch out on and develop them very gradually from level to level to level so that we're not all of a sudden introducing them to a whole new weird realm of music.
I guess essentially, if it makes sense to them, then they can keep up with us; if it doesn't, then they don't. You have to have that positive feedback from an audience to keep you going."
The modest, fame-fleeing Weir, known for wearing shorts onstage — he also soaked his T-shirts in beer coolers to beat the heat of the hot lights — had big hands that enabled him to "voice chords that most people can't reach," Garcia once said, "and he can pull them off right in the flow of playing.
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Weir once said, "We all feel Bob's the finest rhythm guitarist on wheels right now.
He's like my left hand," Garcia noted in a 1978 interview. "We have a long, serious conversation going on musically, and the whole thing is of a complementary nature. We have fun, and we've designed our playing to work against and with each other. His playing, in a way, really puts my playing in the only kind of meaningful context it could enjoy."
Garcia died of a heart attack in a California rehab center at age 53 on August 9, 1995, but Weir, Lesh, and others continued on in groups like Bobby and the Midnites, The Other Ones, and an incarnation known simply as The Dead.
As the Rat Dog frontman, formed shortly before Garcia’s death, Weir played more than a thousand shows.
The Grateful Dead was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.
After that night of celebration, Weir once recalled, he emerged from "the fog" while under a table with Chuck Berry.
Weir was born on October 16, 1947, in San Francisco and was adopted as an infant by a family in the Palo Alto area.
He was expelled from nearly every school he attended and struggled with dyslexia, which went undiagnosed.
Weir became obsessed with the guitar by age 14 (one of his influences was Jorma Kaukonen of Hot Tuna and Jefferson Airplane fame), and a couple of years later he came upon Garcia on New Year's Eve 1963.
James Cameron is helping movies stay popular in the new year as "Avatar: Fire and Ash" topped the box office for the fourth week in a row. His third adventure with the Na'vi characters made $21.3 million from 3,700 theaters over the weekend, bringing its total to $342.6 million in the U.S. and $1.23 billion worldwide.
Those sales were double the next biggest movies, including the new film "Primate" and the holiday movie "The Housemaid."
These two are close in second place, each expected to make about $11 million over the weekend. (Exact numbers will be known on Monday.)
"Primate" made $11.3 million from 2,964 theaters during its opening weekend.
It also earned $2.1 million internationally, making a total of $13.4 million worldwide. People's reactions to the $21 million film were mixed, with a CinemaScore of B-. The movie is about a group of friends on a tropical vacation that goes wrong when a chimpanzee becomes aggressive. Paramount is distributing the film, which is the first under the studio's deal with 18Hz, a company run by Walter Hamada, who used to work at DC Films.
Lionsgate's psychological thriller "The Housemaid," which is expected to take third place with $11.2 million, has kept drawing crowds.
After four weeks in theaters, it has made $94.15 million in North America and $192 million worldwide. That's especially good because the movie only cost $35 million to make.
"Zootopia 2" dropped to fourth place with $10.1 million in its seventh weekend.
The animated sequel has been a big success, making $378.8 million in the U.S. and $1.65 billion worldwide, becoming Walt Disney Animation's highest-grossing movie of all time.
Another new film, Lionsgate's disaster sequel "Greenland 2: Migration" with Gerard Butler, took fifth place with $8.5 million from 2,710 theaters.
The original "Greenland" came out on demand because of the pandemic but did well overseas with $52 million. The sequel was made for $90 million, and Lionsgate bought the U.S. rights for $10 million. The movie follows a family searching for a new home after a comet crashes and destroys most of the world. It received a weak CinemaScore of B-.
David A. Gross from Franchise Entertainment Research said, "This is a flat start."
However, he added that "Gerard Butler is an action star who is well-loved around the world. His international numbers and the rental and streaming business should be good."
Sixth place went to A24's "Marty Supreme" with $7.3 million from 2,512 theaters, a 38% drop from last weekend.
Those sales take the Timothee Chalamet-led film past $70 million in North America and $84 million worldwide, making it one of A24's biggest movies. The film cost $70 million to make, the most expensive for A24 so far, so it needs to keep doing well through the winter to justify the budget. (Theaters keep about half of the money.) However, awards attention, including Chalamet's win at Critics Choice and his Golden Globe nomination, could help justify the spend beyond just the money.
Searchlight's "Is This Thing On?"
made $2.3 million while expanding to 1,475 theaters. The film, directed by Bradley Cooper and starring Will Arnett as a divorced man who turns to stand-up comedy, has already made $3.4 million.
Another awards hopeful, Neon's dark comedy "No Other Choice," made $1.3 million from 147 theaters over the weekend.
The film, directed by Park Chan-wook, has made $3.4 million in limited release.
Angel Studios introduced "I Was a Stranger," which made $1.2 million from 1,400 theaters and placed at No. 15 in the U.S.
The PG-13 film, with a $6 million budget, tells the story of a Syrian family in Aleppo after a tragedy.
So far, the box office is doing slightly better than in 2025.
Although January is usually slower for theaters, this month might be busier than expected. Upcoming big movies include Sony's apocalyptic thriller "28 Years Later: The Bone Temple," the anime "All You Need Is Kill," Amazon MGM's sci-fi adventure "Mercy" with Chris Pratt, Sam Raimi's survival horror film "Send Help," and the Jason Statham movie "Shelter."
David A. Gross said, "We're hoping for a stronger start this year than in 2025 and 2024.
For the [January] box office to reach pre-pandemic levels, 'All You Need Is Kill,' 'Mercy,' 'Send Help,' and 'Shelter' need to do really well."
