For Grateful Dead Tribute Band The Dark Star Orchestra, The Music Never Stops

In this year, the 40th anniversary of Grateful Dead music, it behooves us to consider the legacy of one of the greatest bands of the past century. Sure, the Dead are a punchline now, an easy dig at hippie culture and a generation that talked loud about social change and then settled for a steady job and security. Yet, one is hard pressed to find another act besides The Beatles who've impacted musicians more. Bluegrass, modal jazz, battered blues, folk ditties and straight up rock 'n' roll. It's all in there, the great American songbook wrapped in colorful tie-dye cloth, death and life square dancing on a runaway locomotive. It is fitting they should have tributes dedicated to continuing what a little Bay Area jug band started in the sixties. They couldn't do much better than Dark Star Orchestra (DSO), who combines a fan's zeal with topnotch musicianship to recreate something not unlike the original, a feat the remaining members of the Grateful Dead rarely accomplish nowadays. This last thought is bound to piss off a few of you. Sorry about that but it's true and I'll explain why by and by.

A tribute is a show of respect, gratitude or affection (or in the case of DSO, all three). Too many people view what this band does as novelty, a cheap knockoff designed to cash in on the legacy of another band. Their decision to focus their lives and talents around keeping this music alive is a humble, sincere form of love. Just as the Dead changed their lives, they are humping it town-to-town sharing a refracted part of that magic.

Like many, I resisted Dark Star Orchestra at first. With bootlegs and the Dick's Picks concert series, who really needed something like this? Then, I attended their third anniversary show at the San Francisco Fillmore a couple years ago. Eyes closed as the lights fell, I opened myself up to what might happen. By the end of "Shakedown Street", I was sold. While they usually recreate a past Dead show, this was a DSO original setlist, a new combination of pieces from the Grateful Dead rainbow of material and cover tunes, often showcasing sequences the Dead themselves would never have touched. A "Terrapin" next to a "Shakedown"? A '80s ballad next to a song that hadn't been played since the late '60s? Sure, why not? This music is alive. While it has history aplenty it's still telling its tales today, adding new chapters, offering fresh perspectives within the same stanzas.

Outside every Dark Star gig lie shaggy, ticketless bum-scented armies hoping for entry to a show they'd traveled long miles to. There are motorcycles covered in fur, pot brownie mongers, glass pipe peddlers and all manner of Oliver Twist looking urchins. In their young faces I recognize my first inkling of this music's power but unlike them I paid for every ticket to every Dead gig I ever saw. Never once did I spare change or hassle those who'd planned ahead. It's never been something I could stomach well and it strikes me that this is why many diminish the musical importance of the Grateful Dead - the patchouli soaked culture that hangs around their necks like an albatross.

Inside, the mix of gray hairs and teenagers is dizzying. A quick glance at their crowds announces DSO's multigenerational draw. There's a hunger for this experience that transcends mere nostalgia. It is an urge to live, to be present at peak experiences. It's the lure of community in a world full of fences. It's the chance to dance away the blues, kiss a stranger, kick down a few doors of perception. And it begins with the music. That's the enzyme that starts this entire process. After four decades, these songs are soaked in memory like a cherry in brandy. Each night with Dark Star begins with a question mark about what show they'll recreate. While the calendar may say May 2005, DSO transports us back to Winterland in 1971 or New York City in 1980. Not until the encore do they reveal the precise details.

What impresses me most about DSO is how close they come to capturing the vibe, the emotional atmosphere, of what the Grateful Dead used to do. Yes, I'm using the past tense because the various post-Garcia aggregates - The Dead, Phil and Friends, Ratdog, The Other Ones - only approximate this vibe. That's not to say they don't have charms all their own. They do, often exceeding the Grateful Dead's musical prowess by a goodly margin (especially in the case of Ratdog and Lesh's 2000-2003 "Quintet") but always burdened with being superstars in the cult of personality. After Jerry Garcia's death the remaining members were imbued with archetypal power, a larger-than-life stature that permeates everything they've done since.

If the Grateful Dead were, say, the Super Friends then Jerry's passing took Superman out of the equation and put a lot of pressure on Batman, Aquaman and the others to keep the planet safe. I'm not sure human beings are built to deal with this kind of pressure, even these often-amazing fellows. Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzman and Phil Lesh can't walk onto a stage without this Jungian meta-status. The roar that picks up before they've even played a note tells you how important, how powerful they are to a small legion. Away from the others in their own projects, Weir and Lesh have taken this music to new places, expanded their musical vocabulary and fully come into their own as bandleaders. Together with Hart and Kreutzman in The Dead, they seem much more like the jokey cover band that many paint Dark Star as. Without whatever "X" factor Garcia added, their crucible runs hot but produces little of the old alchemy. There, nostalgia does rule the game and the music suffers for it. Playing stadiums full of adoring fans has to be a tough habit to kick and it's understandable why they'd want to play together again (first as The Other Ones and now as The Dead), but a serious listen to the actual notes will tell you that they are most in their creative bloom away from one another.

DSO bypasses this personality cult and brings us back to the music. They've picked up a few of the Dead's mannerisms, phrasings and signature riffs, but they aren't some VW bus version of Beatlemania. Their reason d'aitre is to revisit various incarnations of a beloved band and make them shine. They are willing to be who Weir and Hart and the rest are no longer able or willing to be. They are playing in the band many of us want to hear again or, in the case of younger fans, experience for the first time. There's something of a séance or ghost dance in their method. More than once I've felt the presence of spirits or whatever you want to call them, dancing amongst hundreds of happy folks who've thoroughly given themselves over to this ritual that's been playing out for four decades.

More than the party tunes and the spectacle that eventually surrounded the Grateful Dead, I think it is their wistful strains that tie us most powerfully to these tunes. The Dead's private poetry is much more intense when shared en masse. Dark Star gets this and emboldens pieces like "Stella Blue" and "Looks Like Rain" with their own dark understanding, their version of the latter soaring with an elemental perfection.

Folks who could be my grandparents come out to tai chi interpretive dance while thrift store harem girls drip hippie sweat over startled strangers. One gets used to the freak show when this circus comes around. Since my first days with the Dead in the mid-80s, my tolerance for the bizarre has increased three-fold. It's a by-product of letting loose in a culture that likes us in neat boxes. Offered actual freedom, there's no telling what people will do. It's another sign that DSO is on the right track that audiences feel safe enough to let it all hang out.

So, how are they different than the Dead? It's a question many express but often without a clear bead on the answer. That they are close enough to cause that kind of confusion should be taken as a compliment. I can offer some scattershot observations, which may be helpful.

Their shifts in mood are smoother. There's less wandering aimlessly in "Space" most of the time. Their attention isn't split by the narcotic maelstrom that sometimes sabotaged things with the Dead. Their "Jerry", John Kadlecik, is less messy than Garcia, his fingers surer than that gypsy wildman, and his slide work has a controlled grace that doesn't jive with Jerry's wonderful country mess. Lisa Mackey ("Donna") more than betters most of the original Donna's vocals by delving deeper into the blues. Kevin Rosen ("Phil") is closer to early '70s Lesh, a bit more tentative than the Greek mythological ramblings of today's Phil. Rob Eaton ("Bobby") is eerily on the mark vocally and increasingly snags Weir's idiosyncratic, brilliant guitar style. Their vocal blends are potent and often possessed of a harmony the Dead managed only rarely. They have bad nights and sloppy starts and all the other bumps that come with being a road band. Sometimes it's creepy how much like the genuine article they sound and at others they are so far off the mark it's strange. However, if any rock band could be described as erratic and unpredictable it is the Grateful Dead.

Does any of this make them "better" than the Dead? Hell no. They wouldn't be doing this at all if there weren't so much rich stuff that's come before. But, they aren't just copyists and over time they're putting their own unique stamp on things. They are keeping the Dead's legacy alive, and like the originators it is a mercurial, spontaneous pilgrims progress that highlights and expands upon the glories of days past, and in this way build a future for the music.