Grateful Dead Founders Bob Weir, Phil Lesh Plot First Duo Tour
Bob Weir and Phil Lesh, two founding members of the Grateful Dead, announced their first-ever duo tour, promising back-to-back acoustic and electric sets featuring reworked versions of classic Dead tunes and solo tracks. The former bandmates will play six dates in three U.S. cities – New York City, Boston and Chicago – in early March.
The Bobby and Phil Tour kicks off March 2nd and 3rd at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, continues March 7th and 8th at Boston’s Wang Theatre and concludes March 10th and 11th at the Chicago Theatre. Fans can register for a Ticketmaster pre-sale, including single-night and two-night VIP packages and two-night travel packages including lodging and show admission. General tickets go on sale Friday, December 15th at 10 a.m. local time via Ticketmaster.
Weir and Lesh notably joined forces with the other two surviving Grateful Dead members, drummers Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart, during the band’s 50th anniversary Fare Thee Well tour. They’ve never played live as a duo without a backing band.
“I guess it was last summer, Phil and I played a little duo show,” Weir said in statement. “We had enough fun so we figured, ‘Hey, let’s do this, lets make a little go of this.”
“Playing with Bob always brings me great joy,” Lesh added. “The intuitive playing that we have developed over five decades of creating music together always leads to new realms of musical experience, something that I find especially exciting, and I think that fans of our music will enjoy this new format as much as I do.”
Lesh told Billboard the pair plan to perform “everything [they] can think of” on the trek. “We’re going to do his stuff, we’re going to do my stuff, we’re going to play Jerry [Garcia]’s stuff, we’ll do Grateful Dead stuff and we’ll do covers,” he said. “We’re going to try and play everything we’ve ever played together and maybe some new stuff too.”