This is far and away my favorite snap of the recently passed Bob Weir. Look at him…20 years old but could easily pass for 15 or 16. And that beaming Peter Pan expression…a tripped-out, light-as-a-feather vibe that says “toodle-fucking-whoo-hoo!”
By all accounts Weir was a happy, easygoing, spiritually nourished fellow who lived an active, buoyant life, and as recently as 20 years ago he half-resembled the guy he was on those Haight-Ashbury steps. But upon hitting his early to mid 70s Weir morphed into a grizzled mountain goat…a weathered, silver-haired, Gabby Hayes-like gold prospector, making camp in the Klondike. Weir passed a week and a half ago (cancer) at age 78.
Pic was taken on the steps of the famed Grateful Dead house (710 Ashbury Street) sometime in the summer or early fall of ’67. (l. to r.) Phil Lesh (25), Weir, some Russian-beaver hat-wearing guy who doesn’t look to me like Mickey Hart, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan (22 but looking closer to 38…died at age 27 from too much booze) and Bill Kreutzmann (21).
Playboy After Dark, 1.18.69. Look at those tuxedo’ed, evening-wear phonies pretending to groove and bop to “St. Stephen” before it even begins.
