Watch John Mayer perform emotional ‘Ripple’ at Bob Weir memorial
During a public memorial for the late Grateful Dead co-founder, Bob Weir, musician John Mayer delivered an emotional eulogy and followed it up with a moving rendition of his classic hit, ‘Ripple’.
On January 10th, it was confirmed by Weir’s family that he had died aged 78 due to underlying lung issues. He had also been diagnosed with cancer in 2025, but had overcome the disease.
In a lengthy eulogy, Mayer reflected on his life with Weir, with whom he played alongside in the Grateful Dead offshoot, Dead & Company. “Over the course of a decade, we came to trust each other,” he shared with the crowd gathered in San Francisco.
He added, “He taught me, among many other things, to trust in the moment […] Bob took a chance on me. He staked his entire reputation on my joining a band with him. He gave me musical community, he gave me this community.”
The pair had been working together for a decade, with them first joining forces in 2015, with a studio performance first taking place in February that year while Mayer was guest-hosting The Late Late Show.
The American guitarist continued, “He lent me his songbook, invited me into the worlds he’d constructed, and taught me what the songs meant and what it meant to perform them. In return, I gave him everything I had night after night, year after year.”
He offered the public a way through the grief, sharing, “I would remind you, as I have tried to remind myself this past week, of just how many nights we all lived so fully in each second, hanging on to every word of Bobby’s, following the music around twists and turns through forests and over majestic vistas, taking in the magnificent interviews and wondering how we all got so lucky to have been found by this music and invited into this dream together.”
He turned inward, expressing the insurmountability of his own grief: “After all we’d shared together, something new has arisen: a sadness so hard to put into words and nowhere near being fully realized. We’ve only begun to make sense of what’s gone missing, and in the end, Bobby was right again. Because all we can do is hold on to this moment, and I don’t have the faintest idea of a plan.”
Mayer finished heartbreakingly, “Thank you, Maestro. You changed my life. I will love you forever. Thank you.”
Mayer gave a moving rendition of ‘Ripple’, the beloved folk-rock song from the Grateful Dead album, American Beauty. Watch the footage from the event below.
Others involved in the memorial included Mickey Hart, Joan Baez, Emerita Nancy Pelosi, and San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie. Via video, the likes of Willie Nelson, Sammy Hagar, Wynonna Judd, Warren Haynes, Phish’s Trey Anastasio, and Bruce Hornsby shared their respects.
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