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

Mike Fleiss's 2014 documentary is about Bob Weir, rhythm guitarist of the Grateful Dead. Weir joined the band at sixteen; the story starts with him dropping out of school and falling in with the Merry Pranksters and runs across a career of more than fifty years. The tension at its centre is that Weir always stood in Jerry Garcia's shadow. His role inside the band, how his own songs were received and his effort to keep the band going after Garcia's death in 1995 are all addressed in detail. There are family sections too; Weir having been adopted and later finding his biological family forms the personal layer. The archive is plentiful and the concert footage is the strongest material. The critical distance is narrow; the documentary stands openly with Weir. Who it's for: Grateful Dead listeners and those interested in sixties American counterculture. Who it's not for: viewers new to the band; the documentary assumes you know the names and the album history.