The Other One: The Long, Strange Trip of Bob Weir

I've been to roughly 400 Dead shows in my life. To me, Weir was always that guy that flubbed his lines, or shouted "Ha!" a lot. This documentary has completely enlightened me to who Bob is. It also tells a pretty good story of the Grateful Dead and Bob's relationship with Jerry. There are parts of it that will likely bring you to tears. So many unknowns about Bobby have been answered. And I must say that he seems to have a great outlook in life. His head is screwed on nice and tight. I love the way he refers to dying as "checking out".

This documentary takes you from the days before he met Jerry all the way to the present and offers a very intimate look into the artist, his music and family life. I'm glad I watched it.

Truly Bob Weir has a colorful story, starting with The Merry Pranksters at age 16 and continuing through three decades of the Dead. Avid Deadheads will love this film. Unfortunately for this fan, Bob concentrates on his role as Jerry's buddy, the chick magnet of the band and the vegan spiritualist survivor. Other than Garcia's health problems, he glosses over conflict within The Dead, including efforts of other band members to dismiss him and Pigpen as musically weak. There's not much music in the film and the band's change in musical direction hardly gets mentioned. It's okay; The Dead was and will always be special, but this documentary doesn't fill the bill.

My 200th review here had to be about this fantastic band and this great musician who rocked the world during 30 years. Those who like the band enjoyed every little second of the movie. Those who still don't know Weir / GD have here a great chance to change this.

Watch the film and listen to the band!

PS: Once the film ended I researched more about Garcia and discovered today (1st August) would be his 76th brithday!!!

If you are a deadhead like me, this documentary will possibly make you cry and you will swear it's the greatest documentary you've ever saw in your life. If you are not, you will find it intriguing, interesting and well done. I was not going to review this because I am so biased. I am a deadhead and this is the most insightful piece of work on the Grateful Dead I've seen in years. If you ever were curious about the Grateful Dead this gives the most behind the scenes look at what occurred. It certainly gives you a different version of Bobby. What a scape of a most unique band that changed history. "The omnipotent Grateful Dead."

Not too much romanticizing the times, not too many hippy dippy claims of enlightenment or tying some meaning to a 'cosmic coincidence', meahn. But also not a lot of new information aside from very personal family stuff. I'd like to have heard more about writing songs and making some of the albums, but it's pretty good. 3.4 stars