Perhaps no label elicits a more negative reaction from those who are serious about music than “tribute band.” Bands that exclusively cover someone else’s material are ubiquitous and are often composed of sub-par musicians and unoriginal hacks. Dark Star Orchestra, who will be playing at the State Theatre this Friday and Saturday night, is a Grateful Dead tribute band. Don’t be fooled by the label, though-DSO is something special.
“They definitely get the vibe of a Dead show,” Mike Levin, a fan who attended close to 200 Grateful Dead shows over the years, said.
What really sets the band apart is that it doesn’t just cover Grateful Dead songs. Instead, it becomes the Grateful Dead for a night. For each concert it plays, the band chooses one of the approximately 2,500 shows the Grateful Dead performed over the course of its 30-year career and recreates it in its entirety. This extends beyond the set list from the chosen night; the band alters its equipment, stage positioning and even its personnel in order to produce a historically-accurate presentation. Since its first gig in Chicago in 1997, DSO has played over 1,000 shows and has been featured in Rolling Stone, USA Today and The Washington Post.
All of the members of DSO are, naturally, Deadheads. Rob Eaton, who “plays” the Dead’s rhythm guitarist Bob Weir, attended over 400 Dead shows, more than anyone else in the band. Eaton is also the only member of DSO who physically resembles the Grateful Dead member he is playing, and he exudes the same energy and stage presence for which Weir was known.
The band is so well-regarded that five former members of the Grateful Dead have joined them on stage over the past few years, including one of the Dead’s drummers, Billy Kreutzman (for most of its existence, the Grateful Dead featured two drummers).
“Getting to play side-by-side with him-it just doesn’t get any better than that,” DSO’s Rob Koritz, who plays second drummer Mickey Hart, said. “By and large, all the musicians we’ve met have been incredibly cool to us.”
John Kadlecik, who plays Jerry Garcia, is appropriately DSO’s star. His voice maintains the fragile, emotionally-driven edge that endeared Garcia to so many. To even the most well-trained ear, Garcia and Kadlecik’s guitar tones and playing styles are nearly identical.
During their performances, DSO doesn’t reveal the date of the original show they have recreated until the end. This tactic creates a kind of game among Deadheads in the audience, who like to guess when the show was originally performed based on the band’s lineup and thesongs it is playing. The Grateful Dead’s sound varied heavily through years, but because their personnel is limited, DSO has never covered a show that the Dead played prior to 1971.
“We don’t have a Pigpen,” Koritz said of the Grateful Dead’s iconic rhythm and blues-influenced front man who died in 1971. “It’s a really different style they played back then.”
According to Koritz, the responsibility of deciding which show to play on any given night is assigned to keyboard player Kevin Rosen. Rosen’s decision about which concert to recreate is based on a number of factors, the most important of which is the size of the stage, because most shows require enough room for two drum sets. (dulcesdiabeticos.com) The band also tries to avoid playing a show from the same era that they covered during their previous trip to the venue. When DSO last played the State Theatre in the fall, they recreated a pair of shows from 1988, so there is a good chance that this time around the band will play a show from the 1970’s, generally considered the Dead’s best musical period.
One of the more interesting aspects of the fall shows at the State Theatre was the high percentage of college-aged fans that packed the small venue. They couldn’t have been more than 13 years old when Jerry Garcia died but were nonetheless dancing and singing along to all of the songs, feeling nostalgic for something they had never experienced.
Although the stream of positive reviews and touring success indicates that most fans have accepted the band and its concept, there are those who remain unconvinced of the worthiness of the band’s endeavors. But the detractors don’t seem to be having much of an effect on DSO.
“If we worried about them, then that’s just wasting time and energy,” Koritz said. “Just come give it a try, and come out one time. And if you dig it, you’ll come back, and if not, that’s fine.”
