Many around the sports world have offered their tributes to the late Bill Walton in recent days following his death on Monday at the age of 71. But on Thursday, the music world, specifically one of Walton’s favorite bands, honored Walton in a truly awesome way at their concert.
Walton’s legendary broadcasting career featured many references to The Grateful Dead, oftentimes discussing his experiences at their concerts over the years live on-air for viewers to hear.
In fact, in his autobiography released in 2016, Walton shared that he has gone to more than 869 concerts to see The Grateful Dead, which is a number that has grown to over 1,000 since. This doesn’t even account for all of Walton’s appearances at Dead & Company concerts, a band which consists of the surviving members of the Grateful Dead along with John Mayer, Oteil Burbridge, and Jeff Chimenti.
Just one day after Walton’s death, Dead & Company offered an official statement about Walton, calling him the band’s “biggest fan” and thanking him for being a “beloved friend”.
“Fare you well, fare you well, we love you more than words can tell,” the band posted on Instagram. “Bill was an irreplaceable force and spirit in our family. Father Time, Rhythm Devil, biggest deadhead ever. Over 1000 shows and couldn’t get enough. He loved this band and we loved him. We will miss our beloved friend, Bill Walton, deeply. Rest in peace and may the four winds blow you safely home.”
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During their concert on Thursday, Dead & Company took things even further regarding a tribute to Walton. Midway through a 10-minute performance of their song “Fire On The Mountain,” the band showed a montage of images showing Walton rocking Deadhead apparel at past concerts, later panning to a series of roses with the No. 32 above them in memorium of Walton.
The entire 10-minute performance can be seen below in this YouTube video of the concert shared by an account named “CML’s Moving Picture Videos”.
This just goes to show that while Walton is primarily known to have impacted the sports and sports media industries, his reach goes even further than that. And most importantly, he will always be remembered as a “Deadhead” for life.
About Reice Shipley
Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.