Bob Weir & Wolf Bros finished a three-night run at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale, FL with a spectacular New Year’s Eve extravaganza featuring an array of dancers, Chinese dragons, and visits from Father Time and Baby New Year.
After kicking off the New Year’s festivities with two-set shows on Friday and Saturday, Weir returned on Sunday for a three-set affair to cap off a milestone year that saw the 76-year-old complete his time touring stadiums with Dead & Company, experiment with onstage songwriting, collaborate with symphonies, and sit in with artists ranging from Willie Nelson to Goose and beyond.
Weir opened the show solo, as he had the previous two nights, starting off with “Loose Lucy” before inviting his Wolf Bros trio partners Jay Lane and Don Was to join in on “The Winners”, a song with lyrics from a poem by Rudyard Kipling from Weir’s time playing in a duo with Rob Wasserman.
Bob Weir & Wolf Bros – “Brokedown Palace” – 12/31/23
He continued the pattern he began at his recent five-night run at The Capitol Theatre by welcoming out the rest of his extended band in stages, playing “Samson and Dililah” as a quartet with Jeff Chimenti before introducing Barry Sless for “Hell in a Bucket” and then finally reaching critical mass with the Wolfpack strings and horns on Bob Dylan‘s “Silvio”. The first set finished with party-time favorite “Tequila”, which fed back into “Silvio”, and a tune each by Weir and his longtime Grateful Dead musical partner Jerry Garcia with “Black-Throated Wind” and “Bird Song”.
A stellar second set composed of Grateful Dead staples “Cassidy”, “Estimated Prophet”, “Eyes of the World”, “The Wheel”, and “Stella Blue”, plus covers of Marvin Gaye‘s “What’s Going On”, Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower”, and Chuck Berry‘s “Around and Around”—all stretched out and ornamented with inspired improvisation and arrangements harnessing the full power of the ten-piece ensemble—teed up the climax of the evening the climax of the evening at the start of set three as Jay Lane’s thunderous drumming ushered two traditional Chinese dragon dancers into the theater.
Bob Weir & Wolf Bros – “Cassidy” – 12/31/23
The life-size dragons danced their way through the crowd and onto the stage as the drumming intensified. Meanwhile, modern dancers Madeline Dunn and Kalista Curbelo and ballet dancers from the Arts Ballet Theatre of Florida emerged onstage alongside festively dressed women scattering rose petals into the crowd, among them Bob’s wife Natascha Weir. Father Time, portrayed by Weir’s manager Matt Busch and accompanied by an adorable Baby New Year, counted down the last ten seconds of 2023 before the band launched into a sweet 2024 with “Sugar Magnolia” as the dancers continued in motion around them.
More Deadhead favorites finished the first Bobby set of 2024, with “Sugar Magnolia” leading into “Scarlet Begonias”, followed by a sequence of “Help on the Way’ > Slipknot!” >”Franklin’s Tower”, and “Sunshine Daydream”. A powerful “Brokedown Palace” encore finally brought the evening to a close.
Check out photos and fan-shot videos from Bob Weir & Wolf Bros’ New Year’s Eve show below.
Next up, Weir will travel to Mexico to play alongside some of his Dead & Company bandmates and a host of collaborators including Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, Goose’s Rick Mitarotonda, Margo Price, and Sturgill Simpson at the inaugural Dead Ahead festival. To purchase tickets, visit his website.
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Bob Weir & Wolf Bros – Broward Center for the Performing Arts – Fort Lauderdale, FL – 12/31/23 [Full Show]
[Video: Joe Wiseman]
Setlist: Bob Weir & Wolf Bros | Broward Center for the Performing Arts | Fort Lauderdale, FL | 12/31/23
Set 1: Loose Lucy, The Winners (Weir & Wasserman), Samson and Delilah (Traditional), Hell in a Bucket, Silvio (Bob Dylan) > Tequila (The Champs) > Silvio, Black-Throated Wind (Bob Weir), Bird Song (Jerry Garcia)
Set 2: Cassidy (Bob Weir), Estimated Prophet > Eyes of the World > What’s Going On (Marvin Gaye) > Eyes of the World, The Wheel (Jerry Garcia) > All Along the Watchtower (Bob Dylan) > Stella Blue > Around and Around (Chuck Berry)
Set 3: Sugar Magnolia > Scarlet Begonias, Help on the Way > Slipknot! > Franklin’s Tower, Sunshine Daydream
Encore: Brokedown Palace
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