Grateful Dead and Dead & Company drummer Mickey Hart, and singer/guitarist Bob Weir have paid tribute to basketball great and Deadhead Bill Walton who died on Monday from cancer.
Hart writes, "Bill was my best friend, the best friend I ever had. He was an amazing person, singular, irreplaceable, giving, loving. His love for our music was beyond description. He called himself the luckiest man in the world but it was us who were lucky—to know him, to share the adventure with him. He was the biggest Deadhead in the world and used our music as the soundtrack to his life. After our shows, he would regularly send messages that said, 'thank you for my life.' Over 1000 shows, he just couldn’t get enough. Bill had an incredible passion for drums. After any meal at his house, we would play. There was nothing like a Bill Walton… nothing.
"There are things you can replace. And others you cannot. Bon voyage, old friend, I love you."
And Weir says, "Yo Bill, thanks for the ride. Thanks for the wonderful friendship, the years of color commentary - and the Hall of Fame existence that you wore like headlights.
"Bon voyage ol’ buddy. We’re sure gonna miss you - but don’t let that slow you down..."
Walton was 71.
Check out the original post about it here from Mickey, Bob and John Fogerty's official Instagram accounts.
In other Dead & Company news.....drummer Mickey Hart tells Forbes the band’s residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas is taking a little getting used to.
“We just came off of a stadium tour. So, coming to the Sphere is almost like your living room in a way. It’s very small. 17 or 18,000 seats and everybody is right on top of you. They can really see you. And you can really see them. Normally, I can’t see the end of the crowd. But, now, I can see their eyeballs. So, it’s very intimate in its way…
"It’s kind of like being in the belly of a giant beast – a giant robot. It’s artificial intelligence. It’s very complex. And it is a sphere. I had never played in a sphere before. So, it’s a completely different psychoacoustic situation there. You have to deal with the way it sounds and the way it looks… But it is a challenge. It wasn’t easy.
"There’s no sound really coming from the stage – it’s all coming from speakers all around … there’s nobody on stage except us – which is a different situation. Normally, it’s a family affair. We just get on the stage and we do what we do. Well, we do it differently now.
“If the visual doesn’t overpower it, you’re able to find that magic when they come together.”
And the visuals are something to behold as you can see in numerous Instagram posts from singer and guitarist Bob Weir.
Dead & Company are at the Sphere through July 13th.