Tonight the Ace Radio Show honors the man, the guitar philosophy, and the music that keeps pulling people back. Plus: everything happening in the Dead universe right now.
The Grateful Dead Live · The Ace Radio Show
Bobby Weir.
The Stories They Never Stop Telling.
Tonight the Ace Radio Show honors the man, the guitar philosophy, and the music that keeps pulling people back. Plus: everything happening in the Dead universe right now.
On The Air Tonight
The Grateful Dead Live · Nightly Radio
The Ace Radio Show
A dedicated celebration of Bob Weir’s solo projects, rhythm guitar legacy, and the music he made that stands entirely on its own.
Bob Weir was never just the rhythm guitarist. He was the counterweight, the architectural foundation that gave Jerry Garcia’s lead lines somewhere to land, and he was a songwriter, vocalist, and bandleader in his own right whose catalog outside the Grateful Dead runs deeper than most people have had the time to fully explore. The Ace Radio Show exists to fix that. Named after Weir’s 1972 solo debut, the show moves through his solo records, his RatDog years, his Wolf Bros performances, and the orchestral projects he built with Stanford composer Dr. Giancarlo Aquilanti toward the end of his life. It is the most complete picture of Bobby Weir that radio offers, and tonight, in the middle of the Days Between, it lands exactly right.
Breaking This Week · August 9 & 10, 2026
What’s Happening Right Now
Two stories dropped in the last 48 hours that deserve full attention. Both are new, both are specific, and neither one is a rehash of anything you have read before.
The Samoan Fishermen and the Story Nobody Had Heard Before
Kreutzmann published a completely new personal memory yesterday on the anniversary of Jerry Garcia’s passing.
He was alone on a beach in Hawaii shortly after Garcia died. Two massive Samoan spearfishermen walked up to him. Kreutzmann braced for the worst kind of interaction. Instead, they looked at him, paused, and said simply: “Sorry to hear about da big guy.” He wrote that realizing they knew exactly who Jerry was brought tears to his eyes immediately. It is the kind of story that only comes from a person who actually lived it, not from someone trying to write something meaningful for an anniversary. It is specific, funny in the way that grief sometimes produces funny moments, and completely unrehearsed. Kreutzmann posted it without fanfare, and the community responded the way it always does when something real surfaces.
“They knew exactly who Jerry was… and that brought tears to my eyes.”
Bill Kreutzmann · August 9, 2026The Guitar He Stole From George Benson and Never Gave Back
Guitar Player published an exclusive archival feature today breaking down Weir’s rhythm philosophy and his instrument collection.
The headline story is one that has not been told publicly before. Weir fell in love with a custom Ibanez electric guitar belonging to jazz legend George Benson. He wanted it so badly that he told Benson’s entourage, directly and without embarrassment, that they could call the police if they wanted to, but he was taking the guitar. He took it. It became one of his absolute favorite touring instruments. That combination of audacity and genuine passion for tone is exactly what defined Weir’s relationship to instruments throughout his entire career. He did not collect guitars as objects. He played them until they became part of how he thought about music, and when he found one that changed his playing, he held onto it by any means necessary.
“You can call the police or do whatever you’re going to do to me, but I’m taking it.”
Bob Weir · Guitar Player MagazineWhat John Mayer Revealed About Bobby Weir’s Final Performances
Mayer published an extensive tribute on the one-year anniversary of Dead & Company’s final shows at Golden Gate Park.
In the post, Mayer publicly addressed Bob Weir’s health battle with cancer for the first time. He described Weir’s decision to perform nine hours of music across three nights at Golden Gate Park while privately fighting cancer-related respiratory issues as one of the greatest acts of heroism he expects to witness in his lifetime. That framing is not hyperbole from someone reaching for the right thing to say. Mayer has been careful and precise in how he talks about the Dead’s music and history in every public context, and calling Weir’s final performances an act of heroism is a deliberate choice that carries real weight when you understand the specific physical circumstances he was performing through.
“One of the greatest acts of heroism I will ever see in my lifetime.”
John Mayer on Bob Weir’s final performances · August 3, 2026The Terrapin Roadshow Is Moving and the Tribute Scene Is at Full Speed
August 9 brought the anniversary of Garcia’s passing, and the live tribute community treated it like the occasion it is.
Grahame Lesh is actively leading the Terrapin Roadshow on the West Coast this week, continuing the community-building tradition that his father Phil Lesh built at Terrapin Crossroads before its closure. The Roadshow brings the same philosophy of open musical community to the road rather than anchoring it to a single venue, and Grahame’s leadership of it reflects a genuine commitment to carrying that spirit forward rather than simply trading on the family name. The broader tribute circuit has been running hot all week, with anniversary shows and Days Between programming filling stages across the country in formats that range from full theater productions to free outdoor park gatherings.
Garcia Estate · Major Announcement
Eyes of the World: The Jerry Garcia Experience
The Jerry Garcia Estate just announced the most ambitious physical exhibition the community has ever seen, and the concept behind it goes back further than you might expect.
The Garcia Estate has officially announced a 40,000-square-foot touring immersive exhibition built around Garcia’s life, music, and creative vision. The scale of it puts everything the community has seen before in a different category. The most remarkable detail is where the concept originated: Garcia himself began designing the blueprint for this kind of experience over thirty years ago in collaboration with author Ken Kesey. The two of them were working on ideas for an immersive Garcia world before the technology to fully realize it existed. The estate is now building what Garcia and Kesey sketched out together, which means this is not a posthumous tribute conceived by people who loved his work. It is the completion of something Garcia actually wanted to exist.
National Tour Schedule
San Francisco · Now Open & Coming Up
Forever Grateful and What’s Next
The Haight Street Art Center exhibition is open now. Golden Gate Park comes next. Here is the full calendar of what is still ahead.
Haight Street Art Center · San Francisco, CA. Over 400 archival pieces including rare instruments, lithographs, photographs, and a functional scaled Wall of Sound broadcasting vault recordings inside the gallery. Grahame Lesh and the Lesh family estate are directly involved in the curation.
Grahame Lesh & Friends · Robin Williams Meadow · Golden Gate Park · San Francisco. Free and open to the public. 2:00–6:00 PM. A deliberate callback to the free park concerts Phil Lesh and the Grateful Dead pioneered in San Francisco in the 1960s.
The Philly Pops with Melvin Seals and Tom Hamilton · TD Pavilion at the Mann Center · Philadelphia. The symphonic tribute format meets the two most active veterans of Garcia’s live band legacy.
Giants Stadium June 17, 1991 · 48-track remastered surround sound · Select theaters across the country · Most showtimes at 3:00 PM. New Jersey locations include Basie Center Cinema in Red Bank, AMC Freehold 14, and AMC Voorhees 16.
20-CD box set · 7 previously unreleased complete concerts from the 20th anniversary summer tour · Greek Theatre Berkeley three-night run, Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Hershey Park Stadium, and two nights at Merriweather Post Pavilion · 10,000 individually numbered copies via Dead.net · $199.98
40,000-square-foot immersive touring exhibition · Concept originated with Garcia and Ken Kesey over 30 years ago · Launching San Francisco before touring New York, Chicago, Nashville, and Los Angeles.
“Bobby’s insistence on performing nine hours of music over three nights while privately fighting cancer-related respiratory issues was one of the greatest acts of heroism I will ever see in my lifetime.”
John Mayer · August 3, 2026
