Grateful Dead legend Bob Weir dies at age 78

Bob Weir, the veteran rock musician who helped guide the legendary bands the Grateful Dead and Dead & Company through decades of change and success, has died at age 78, according to a statement posted to his verified Instagram account on Friday.

The Instagram statement, posted by his daughter Chloe Weir, said he was surrounded by loved ones when he died. Bob Weir had been diagnosed with cancer in July and “succumbed to underlying lung issues”, the statement said.

“Bobby will forever be a guiding force whose unique artistry reshaped American music,” Chloe Weir wrote. “There is no final curtain here, not really. Only the sense of someone setting off again.

Chloe Weir requested privacy for the family and was thankful for the support they received. “May we honor him not only in sorrow, but in how bravely we continue with open hearts, steady steps, and the music leading us home. Hang it up and see what tomorrow brings.”

Along with his late fellow Grateful Dead co-founder and lead guitarist Jerry Garcia, who was at the center of the Deadhead universe, Weir was one of the group’s two frontmen and main vocalists for most of the band’s 60-year history.

His family wrote that his “work did more than fill rooms with music; it was warm sunlight that filled the soul, building a community, a language, and a feeling of family that generations of fans carry with them.”

The post continued, adding that Weir received his diagnosis in July and began treatment just weeks before he performed a weekend of shows at Golden Gate Park in celebration of 60 years of music.

“Those performances, emotional, soulful, and full of light, were not farewells, but gifts,” the post read. “Another act of resilience. An artist choosing, even then, to keep going by his own design. As we remember Bobby, it’s hard not to feel the echo of the way he lived. A man driftin’ and dreamin’, never worrying if the road would lead him home. A child of countless trees. A child of boundless seas. ”

Weir is survived by his wife Natascha and their two daughters, Monet and Chloe.

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