For the third year in a row, Bob Weir was at the annual NAMM Trade Show at the Anaheim Convention Center in southern California. On Thursday, he delivered a private performance alongside his Wolf Bros comrades, bassist Don Was and drummer Jay Lane.
The Dead & Company guitarist/singer had been in attendance this time last year to accept the organization’s “Music for Life” award in addition to playing a small, private concert with Lane and a few other notable rock musicians. There were no awards to be handed out this year, but an abundance of Grateful Dead songs filled the air as fans were treated to an 11-song performance from Bobby and the boys.
The performance took place at the D’Angelico Guitars’ booth 212AB and featured Weir showing off his brand new signature model from his preferred guitar brand with the “Deluxe Bob Weir Bedford.” The invite-only, 90-minute performance started with Weir, Was, and Lane dusting off Little Feat‘s “Easy To Slip”. Next up was “Only A River”, a folky ballad from Weir’s 2016 Blue Mountain solo album, followed by the trio returning to the Dead catalog for a wonderful, jam-filled rendition of “Jack Straw” with Weir and Lane trading off vocal duties throughout each verse. The band continued with Weir picking up that new electric guitar of his to start into a pretty impressive instrumental version of “Dark Star”, during which some gnarly amplification feedback forced Weir to even confusingly admit “That ain’t right” over the mic while he played.
The band continued their nonstop flow of Dead material right into lovely renditions of “Bird Song”, “Lost Sailor”, and “Saint of Circumstance”. Next up was a nod to “The City of Angels” where they found themselves on Thursday with “West L.A. Fadeaway”, followed by “Easy Answers”, a tune originally released back in 1994 co-written by Weir, Robert Hunter, Dead pianist Vince Welnick, and RatDog co-founder Rob Wasserman. The band continued with the addition of a second drummer for a cover of Bob Dylan‘s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”. The small but passionate crowd could all be heard singing along as the band tore into “Not Fade Away” to close out the show.
Earlier in the day on Thursday, Weir was one of the many notable rock artists named to appear on Don Felder’s forthcoming solo album, in addition to Slash, Mick Fleetwood, and Sammy Hagar, just to name a few. Bob Weir & Wolf Bros will start their recently-announced 2019 winter tour with a gig at The State Theatre of Ithaca in Ithaca, New York next month on February 28th.
Setlist: Bob Weir & Wolf Bros | Anaheim Convention Center | Anaheim, CA | 1/24/2019
Set: Easy To Slip (Bobby & The Midnights cover), Only A River, Jack Straw (Grateful Dead cover), Dark Star (Grateful Dead cover) > Bird Song (Jerry Garcia cover) > Lost Sailor (Grateful Dead cover) > Saint of Circumstance (Grateful Dead cover), West L.A. Fadeaway (Grateful Dead cover), East Answers (Rob Wasserman cover), A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall (Bob Dylan cover) > Not Fade Away (Buddy Holly cover)