Bob Weir & Wolf Bros Welcome Chris Robinson, Jackie Greene At BeachLife Festival

The inaugural BeachLife Festival kicked off on Friday, May 3, with Bob Weir and Wolf Bros, and As The Crow Flies headlining the first day of the Redondo Beach, California event. Notably, Chris Robinson‘s The Black Crowes tribute debuted a new lineup during their set. Bob Weir also guested with Slightly Stoopid, while Robinson and Jackie Greene went on to guest with Weir’s newly launched trio during their day-closing performance.

After sets by Bruce Hornsby and Steel Pulse, As The Crow Flies took the stage. Once, again Chris Robinson returned to lead the Black Crowes-inspired tribute, serving as a charismatic frontman throughout the show. Unlike its initial lineup that debuted last year, guitarists Marcus King and Audley Freed as well as keyboardist Adam MacDougall were all absent from the show. The latter absence was somewhat unsurprising, given MacDougall’s split from Chris Robinson Brotherhood earlier in the week. Happily, Robinson found solid replacements in Jackie Greene, Atlanta-based guitarist Benji Shanks, and Once and Future Band keyboardist Joel Robinow. Watch the full set below, which starts around the five-hour, four-minute mark.

Genre-blending ska band Slightly Stoopid followed up the As The Crow Flies set, offering a special acoustic performance. Throughout the show, the group primarily performed songs off their 2004 live album Acoustic Roots: Live & Direct. However, toward the end of their set, the band transitioned into self-described “electric madness” and welcomed Bob Weir. Weir served as a special guest for the Grateful Dead’s “Franklin’s Tower,” a collective previously collaborated on during an extended performance at Weir’s TRI Studios in 2016, and Tom Petty’s “You Don’t Know How It Feels.” Watch Weir’s sit-in with Slightly Stoopid, which beings around the six-hour, 58-minute mark.

For the final set of the evening, Bob Weir & Wolf Bros closed out the BeachLife Festival’s Low Tide stage. During their set, the trio of Weir, Jay Lane and Don Was offered a dozen songs frequently drawn from the Grateful Dead catalog, including set-opening classics “Jack Straw,” “Cassidy,” “Peggy-O,” “The Music Never Stopped” and “The Other One”. Toward the end of the set, the group deftly transitioned from Rob Wasserman’s “Easy Answers” into The Crickets’ “Not Fade Away.” As the latter began, the trio welcomed Robinson and Greene to the stage, with Weir conferring with the two guests before starting the song proper. With Robinson on vocals and Greene swapping guitar licks with Weir, the song served as a joyous close to the day ahead of a thoughtful, final take on “Ripple.” Watch Bob Weir & Wolf Bros’ set at the seven-hour, 36-minute mark, and Robinson and Greene’s sit-in nine hours and five minutes into the stream below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWmh7uYFHBA&feature=youtu.be

Setlist

Setlist