Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann has shared his thoughts on his late bandmate Bob Weir, whose death was announced Saturday.
In a lengthy post on Instagram, Kreutzmann recounts their first meeting and all the fun they had in the early days of the Grateful Dead.
“Together, we embarked on a journey without a destination,” he writes. “We didn’t set out to change the world, or to become big stars, or to have our own counterculture — we didn’t know any of those things were actually possible and we wouldn’t have been very interested in them even if we did. Well, not too much, anyway. Just enough to dream.”
“I once heard Bobby refer to himself as ‘the greatest rhythm guitar player in the world’ and it made me chuckle lightheartedly at my brother’s boastfulness,” he continues. “The thing is… he was probably right. Time has proven that nobody will ever be able to replace Jerry Garcia — or Phil Lesh — and time will prove the same for Bob Weir.”
“There are so many people who can rightfully say that their life would not have been the same without Bob Weir,” he adds. “That’s been true for me since I was 17. And through it all, the high times and the low tides, my love for him will not, indeed can not, fade away.”
Finally, Kreutzmann asks, “In the end, what more was there for him to do? He played it all… and never the same way, twice. I think he had finally said everything he had to say and now he’s on to the next thing. I just hope he was able to bring his guitar with him or otherwise he’ll go crazy.”
Grateful Dead was co-founded by Weir, Kreutzmann, Garcia, Lesh and Ron “Pigpen” McKernan in 1965, with drummer Mickey Hart and lyricist Robert Hunter joining the group in 1967. Kreutzmann and Hart are now the last two surviving members of the band.
Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
