Bob Weir Celebrates Album Anniversary at Radio City Music Hall
April 04, 2022
Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros – Radio City Music Hall – April 2, 2022
When Bob Weir debuted Wolf Bros in 2019, it was odd, quirky, exhilarating in a strange way, and completely Bob Weir. Its focus was Grateful Dead music and Weir’s own, but it had no real expectations or precedent as a Weir project, and that was freeing. It doesn’t have a big sound, per se—it creates a big space with a lot of room to move around in, and its core band of Weir, Don Was and Jay Lane occupied that space with a flexible, malleable, almost inscrutable approach to music-making that, if you could steady your own expectations and hook into their wavelength instead of trying to ascribe yours, would provide one of the most curiously satisfying experiences in the post-Dead continuum. Weir brings the guitar forward at times, but he’s less a guitar-trio frontman here than a musical storyteller pulling in sounds that sort of occur in the moment: improv, yeah, and half-formed snatches of ideas that fit this experimental canvas well.
Fast-forward a few years, Wolf Bros still create a big space with lots of room to move around in, even with—as in this current tour—a much bigger band, that in addition to its core trio, now features keyboardist and perennial post-Dead-band swingman Jeff Chimenti, pedal-steel ace Barry Sless, and a horn-and-string section known as the Wolf Pack, which, having been road-tested a bit now, adds Goldilocks color-and-shading to how Wolf Bros acquit their tunes—not too little, not too much. The full strength of this expanded ensemble filled the whole of Radio City Music Hall Saturday night during the first of two special shows celebrating the 50th (!) anniversary of Weir’s first solo album, Ace. “Jesus,” intoned Weir a few songs into the first set, in a genuine display of emotion. “Fifty fucking years?!”
They had the crowd on their side right from the jump. Out came special guest Tyler Childers for a vigorous “Greatest Story Ever Told.” The affable Childers, as the saying goes, clearly understood the assignment. And then it was the rest of the Ace album to unfold during the expansive first set and near-seamless transitions from one Grateful Dead song into another. Another special guest, Brittney Spencer, counterbalanced Weir with resplendent country-soul vocals. With the album splayed out, but set two still to come, it was clear this would be a full-meal kind of show.
After a brief tease of “Wharf Rat,” the ensemble then shifted into one of the night’s most inspired selections—an unusual “Dark Star” that brought out jazz royalty Ron Carter on bass for a layered, shape-shifting improvisation. (It must be said: Childers, Spencer and Carter all added more than a little something to what Wolf Bros were ready to deliver—each inspired, and each not the first potential guest you’d think of when it was announced Wolf Bros would add extra players ahead of these shows.) The final sequence of the long, nearly three-and-a-half-hour show turned up “Eyes of the World,” a Spencer-assisted lean into Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” and then a spooky-sentimental “Days Between” before a “Playin’ in the Band” reprise and the warm “Ripple”—an inevitable sing-along—to cap the night. —Chad Berndtson | @Cberndtson
Photos courtesy of Maggie V. Miles | @Maggievmiles
