✌️ Remembering Bob Weir
How singing 'Happy Birthday' to the Grateful Dead icon changed one Upstater's life.
Since the great Bob Weir passed away Saturday, I did some light reach-out for any favorite Grateful Dead/Bobby stories from their many shows at SPAC. As it turned out, I ended up choosing one from Madison Square Garden; an Upstate Dispatch reader traveled there Oct. 14 and 15, 1994 — and ended up singing “Happy Birthday” to “Bobby” with about 15 of his closest friends.
“I was living in Brooklyn, and my friend Amy invited me — we were besties from Upstate,” Lisa says. “Someone knew someone, and we ended up backstage. The show was the most magical thing of my entire life, dancing. It sounds crazy, but it’s true.
“After the concert, we went straight to the Four Seasons, and they wouldn’t let us in. Bob arranged for someone to come and get us, so we snuck in with a cart of alcohol. Jerry was having health problems by then, so he wasn’t there.
“It was Saturday night, and they didn’t have a concert the next day, his birthday, so they turned this hotel room after-party into a little birthday party. We all sang ‘Happy Birthday.’ There was no cell phones, no cameras, none of that. It was such a beautiful moment.”