Isabella Gomez-Sarmiento

And a lot of people are looking for a sense of community.

Like Tammy Kernodle kept describing this to me, like these folk protest artists on TikTok and the audiences they're finding as digital communities.

And, you know, it shows that a lot of people are frustrated by the same things.

But I think something that we have yet to see is how much that raising consciousness of this era of protest music really translates into pushing for social change.

I think that's been a key factor of protest music in the past, like when we were talking about the 60s, the 70s.

Those were times when the music was really used to mobilize people to actually get outside and protest and march and rally and demand change in a material way.

And I think that's a lot harder to do when...

You have these massive numbers, but it's all people independently behind their screens, right?

So I think what we have yet to see is, like, how is that power going to translate to something tangible in the world?

Or maybe it also opens up to, like, there's just digital kinds of activism that people are doing now.

I don't know.

But that's sort of the question that I keep coming back to.

Bob Weir helped form one of the greatest American jam bands when he was only a teenager.

As the youngest member of the Grateful Dead, he earned his dues through his cowboy guitar licks and throaty vocals.

For decades, Weir and his bandmates transformed their improvisational, psychedelic sound from an output of San Francisco's hippie scene to a massively appealing subculture across the country and around the world.

Weir stayed with the Dead until lead singer Jerry Garcia's death in 1995.

He reunited with his bandmates repeatedly over the years, spurring new iterations that kept the Dead's explosive live shows running until the very end of his life.

Isabella Gomez-Sarmiento, NPR News.

Perry Bomonte was a roadie and guitar tech for The Cure for years, before he became a full-time member of the band in 1990.

He played keyboard and six-string bass on several albums, including the 1992 commercial hit, Wish.