It’s taken me 4 weeks to figure out whether to tell this sad story, but I think I should because I think some of you may want to help out.
My Australian tour finished a month ago. After 12 weeks of working together, we landed in Sydney, struggled past the assholes standing too close to the carousel to gather our bags and instruments, and hugged each other goodbye.
There were 18 of us in the tour party, and I think we all agreed it had been one of the best tours we’d worked on; beautiful theatres, wonderful audiences, no big issues or illnesses, and an amazing team of people utterly dedicated to the pursuit of silliness and excellence.
The last person I said farewell to was the person to whom we all owed the biggest debt: Greg Weaver, tour manager and sound engineer extraordinaire. He handed me my guitar and we agreed we’d talk the following day to dig into planning the UK tour. He pointed me to my driver, gave me a brief and perfectly unsentimental hug… and that was that. Five hours later I was calling my bandmates to tell them that our Greg had died of a heart attack just a couple of hours after delivering us all home. No warnings, no prior problems… just one of those things.
It is hard to explain the genius of Greg. He was a quiet, extremely hard-working, deeply ironic, funny, unique, talented man. I’d only known him for 4 years, but I’ve been hugely saddened by his sudden passing, and I’m furious that I will no longer benefit from his brilliance!
And I’m a new-comer! He was Sound-God and Tour-Guru to some of Australia’s greatest artists. Paul Kelly and his mob have been working with Greg for 20 years. The Whitlams for almost as long. Sarah Blasko, Phil Jamieson, Boy and Bear, The Clouds and many others. We’re all shattered.
Many, many people commented that our “Back” tour sounded as good as any concert they’ve ever been to. The excellent quality was because Greg Weaver was obsessively, unrelentingly dedicated to his craft. We would soundcheck for over an hour every night, and he would wander around the theatre sitting in dozens of seats to make sure the mix was sounding good. He loved his work, and cared deeply about words and music. The last song he mixed was Carry You (for those who’ve seen it).
If you enjoyed our tour and would like to pay a small tribute to the unsung hero of “Back”, I wonder if you’d drop a few dollars to help out his fantastic wife and boy here: https://supportact.org.au/greg-weaver-appeal/. They need us.
Farewell to the Dream Weaver. This post does no justice to you.
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