The Grateful Dead planned to reunite with Phil Lesh for their 60th anniversary

There will be Grateful Dead among those honored at next month’s Kennedy Center Honors, but they’ll do it without bassist Phil Lesh, who died last month at the age of 84.

The band’s surviving members – Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart, who still play together in Dead & Company – caught up with Anthony Mason for a moment CBS this morning interview five days after Lesh’s death. The interview had been announced for some time and Lesh was also supposed to be there. During the chat that aired today, they revealed that they had intended to play together again before Lesh passed away. The idea was for the four original members to take the stage together next year to celebrate the band’s 60th anniversary. “We wanted to see where it was going,” Weir said. “But we were only supposed to play with four players. And now there are only three of us.

Watch the clip below.

The Kennedy Center Honors will take place on December 8 and will air on December 23 on CBS and Paramount+. Other honorees this year included Bonnie Raitt, Arturo Sandoval, Francis Ford Coppola and Harlem’s Apollo Theater.