Bob Weir & The Waybacks
Sixth Annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival
Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA
October 6-8, 2006
One of the more interesting recent pairings of Grateful Dead members and outside musicians, Bob Weir and The Waybacks headlined the Arrow Stage closing night at the sixth annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in October. The three-day, five-stage free show in Golden Gate Park, hosted by philanthropist Warren Hellman, has become a proud San Francisco tradition.
The all-acoustic Waybacks—blonde-bearded frontman James Nash, guitarist Stevie Coyle, bassist Joe Kyle, Jr., drummer Chuck Hamilton and fiddler/mandolinist Warren Hood—warmed up with a few originals. Nash and Hood picked out the intro to “The River” together, Nash playing fast, flamenco-inflected guitar, then Hood sang the shufflin’ “Goin’ to New Orleans.”
Once Weir joined for an easygoing “Bertha,” the tie-dyes popped up to
dance. Weir and Nash traded vocals on “Jack Straw,” Nash utterly
shredding on guitar. They hit Johnny Cash’s “Big River,” then a
1966-speed take on the Rolling Stones’ “19th Nervous Breakdown” with
spot-on harmonies—and the crowd howling.
The Waybacks’ fusion of acoustic jazz, Spanish style guitar and
American roots lent itself well to a Hot Club-style take on “Dupree’s
Diamond Blues,” with all the players swapping runs over Kyle’s walking
bass. Then Nash invited hillbilly songstress Gillian Welch and her
archtop-slinging accomplice David Rawlings—HSB staples and darlings of
the San Francisco scene—out for “Dire Wolf.” Welch eschewed her axe to
sing but Rawlings joined the guitar pull with his distinctive,
old-timey finger style.
That led to an astonishingly tight strings-and-all cover of Led
Zeppelin’s “Kashmir,” with Nash on mandolin and Hamilton nailing the
off-time beat. Weir kicked into rock-star mode and hit those Robert
Plant high notes—and, after some tight jamming, dropped it into “Saint
Stephen” and the “William Tell” bridge—which segued into the Stones’
“The Last Time.” Welch and Rawlings returned for a big-band “Casey
Jones” and Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone.”
Weir and The Waybacks have gigged together before—including at the
premiere party for the 2004 film Festival Express—and Welch and
Rawlings had covered the Dead’s “China Doll” in their big-stage set the
previous afternoon. The entry of such fine pickers into sub-Dead orbit
bodes well for the acoustic side of the Dead’s legacy. Richard B. Simon
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