Over the weekend, Dark Star Orchestra both honored Jerry Garcia’s birthday and marked the one-year-anniversary of Bob Weir’s final live performances with a pair of guest-filled shows at Berkeley, CA’s Greek Theatre. Billed as The Music Never Stops: A Rex Foundation Benefit & Tribute to Bob Weir, the concerts included support spots from Melvin Seals & JGB featuring Jazz Mafia Horns and Peter Rowan & Sam Grisman Project on Friday and Saturday, respectively. A range of special guests also sat in with the Grateful Dead tribute act during Friday’s festivities, including Weir’s onetime bandmates Dave Ellis, Barry Sless, John Kadlecik, Mark Karan and Jay Lane. Of note, John K’s appearance marked a rare reunion between the guitarist and his former band—he co-founded Dark Star Orchestra in 1997 and remained with the group until 2009, when he left to focus on Furthur, and has only sat in with them a handful of times since during the past 17 years.
Friday’s show, which was an elective DSO setlist, kicked off with a version of Weir’s classic solo cut “Cassidy” featuring former RatDog/The Other Ones saxophonist Ellis. Dark Star Orchestra then charged through “Loose Lucy” and “Box of Rain” and brought out pedal-steel player Sless, a longtime member of the extended Dead commiunity most recently known as a member of Bob Weir & Wolf Bros, for “Let It Grow” and “Ramble On Rose.” From there, the band moved on to “Black-Throated Wind,” which DSO guitarist Rob Eaton introduced as his favorite Weir song, and “Cumberland Blues” sans guests, before Seals, Kadlecik and Lane, who played drums in almost all of Weir’s long-term projects after 1995, all emerged for “Corrina.” After that unique take on the Weir/Robert Hunter original, Seals and Kadlecik stepped off the stage, Lane remained and former RatDog/The Other Ones guitarist Mark Karan slid in for a set-closing take on “Shakedown Street.” During the second half of their show, Dark Star Orchestra mostly showcased their current lineup. However, for their “Drums” segment, Rob Koritz and Dino English welcomed Lane, Melvin Seals & JGB drummer Jeremy Hoenig, Sages and Spirits’ Jake Wolf and The Everyone Orchestra’s Matt Butler for a veritable super jam.
The Music Never Stops’ Saturday setlist also contained several notable asterisks. After Grisman and Rowan, appropriately, concluded their set of Old and in the Way material with that group’s eponymous song, Dark Star Orchestra recreated the Grateful Dead’s famed August 1, 1973, show at Jersey City, NJ’s Roosevelt Stadium. As previously reported, DSO guitarist Jeff Mattson played Garcia’s famed Alligator Stratocaster, on loan from Grateful Guitars Foundation founder Andy Logan, throughout the night. (Making it a full-circle moment, Garcia last utilized Alligator at the original August 1, 1973, Roosevelt Stadium show before retiring it. Since then, the guitar has only been played twice by Mattson—at the Warfield in San Francisco in 2020 and at this Saturday’s performance.)
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