On August 9th 1995 Jerry Garcia died in Forrest Knolls, California. I was enjoying the remainder of the summer on the beach in New Jersey before my Senior year of high school and Bob Weir was in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire with his band Ratdog (unofficially the worst name for a band devised). Bob recieved word a few hours before the show, then summoned up a great deal of courage and decided to go on stage.
To Bob Jerry was more than just a band mate and a friend. Raised by his adoptive parents possessing a genius level intellect but managing to be expelled from every school attended, young Bob was an adrift sixteen year old looking for guidance and a way. New Year's Eve 1963 Bob and friend (who would help pen the majority of Weir's Grateful Dead songs) John Barlow were looking for a bar that would let them in when their heard banjo music seeping out of Dana Morgan's Music Store in Palo Alto. They walked in and met a 21 year old Jerry Garcia. From that date on Jerry taught Bob to play guitar and in my opinion gave him the father figure he was searching for. These two massive minds possessing incredible talent would form a creative relationship outside of Mccartney-Lennon-Harrison and Richards-Jagger the world had never seen; I venture to say we will never see it again in our lifetimes.
So that night Bob Weir took the stage and addressed the audience in a shaky voice on the verge of tears "Well, if there's anything our friend taught is, it's that music can be used to ease us through the sad times." With that the crowed clapped in a reserve manner and the opening riffs of "Bombs Away" hustled through the amps. The show itself would be the best Ratdog 'leg I ever heard. Every line carried a mournful weight and gravitas, Weir's usually subdued and technical rhythm playing was sharper and forceful, louder and more apparent.
It is interesting he chose this song to start the show with, possibly summoning up the title words and dropping into an unknown enviroment, except this time instead of love it was death. I find it interesting also because Weir always had a push towards the disco infused rhythms while in the Dead with songs such as "Feel Like a Stranger" and of course the entire Shakedown Street album; this track certainly has disco-mainstream vibes in direct contrast to the usual Dead tried and true combination of traditional American music and trickling extended solos.
It was a sad day to be sure but I would reckon that most beautiful songs and performances can find their conception within sad times; as different as this studio version is of this track is upon hearing it I can never get the image of Bob standing on a stage, truly alone, starting it off and leaping into, for him, the abyss.
