Circles Around The Sun (CATS) and Grateful Shred recently ended a short swing through the Pacific Northwest with a stunning and unique 3+ hour concert at Bellingham’s Wild Buffalo.

As with any Grateful Dead-inspired musical performance, the two bands together turned the disco ball-festooned venue into a huge dance party.

At Wild Buffalo House of Music on Sept. 15, the show featured striking renditions of favorite Dead tunes complemented by CATS’s GD inspired instrumental cosmic disco. But what made the evening’s program so distinctive was how the blended bands played through the entire night with nary a musical break. In other words, the music never stopped.

To use Dead taper’s iconography the evening looked like this: Shred > CATS > Shred >Encore: CATS/Shred.

The show opened with Grateful Shred, including guest vocalist Mikaela Davis, turning in an energetic “Bertha.” Following two standard Bobby Weir classics, “The Race is On” and “Big River,” Mikaela returned to the stage to sing lead on “Bird Song,” her soaring vocals lifting the song and the crowd into flight. There was no coming down the rest of the evening.

Founded in 2016 by Austin McCutchen, Grateful Shred’s popularity, and cred, grew following an impromptu parking lot set at the Hollywood Bowl before a 2017 Dead and Company show. Getting busted and shut down by the cops gained the band a notoriety that’s only grown over time.

Watch Grateful Shred perform “Busted at the Bowl” live on YouTube:

The opening hour finished up with “New Speedway Boogie,” with the first changeover between bands occurring while drummers Mark Levy (CATS) and Austin Beede (Shred) guided us along a percussive path that gradually grew in intensity.

As the Grateful Shred band members steadily gave way to CATS (John Lee Shannon: guitars; Dan Horne: bass; Adam MacDougall: keyboards; and the aforementioned Mark Levy: drums), they then proceeded to embark on an hourlong extended instrumental journey.

Performed on a darkened stage, the CATS set instead was lit by the reflections of the various disco balls suspended throughout the venue, enhancing the psychedelic vibe of the music. Though inspired by the Grateful Dead, CATS music (as noted on the band’s website) “shares shelf space with post-rock, psych-rock, jazz-funk, and good old-fashioned psychedelia.” Though some find instrumental rock monotonous, the repetitive musical structure opens it up to waves of alternating intensity and tranquility, evolving percussive patterns, and an improvisational nature that crosses unforeseen and expansive musical boundaries-dynamics fully embraced by CATS.

As CATS’s set wound down with the bouncy “Moonbow” (from the 2024 EP, After Sunrise), the music shifted into the “Space” section of the show. Eventually, Shred members began to slip back onstage and, as both bands share members, Shannon, Horne, and MacDougall remained onstage as guitarist Austin McCutchen, drummers Alex Koford and Austin Beede, and Mikaela took up their positions.

Watch CATS perform “Moonbow” on Audiotree Live via YouTube:

The final act segued from “Space” into the distinctive opening of “Feel Like a Stranger,” the song’s chunky-funky rhythm flowing improbably, but effortlessly, into the calming drift of “Catfish John.” The show ended in energetic fashion with “Beat it on Down the Line,” “Cassidy” (a personal favorite from Bob Weir’s stellar 1971 solo album, Ace), the bluesy “Easy Wind” and, finally, a lively “Shakedown Street.” After a short break, all musicians returned for the encore of CATS’s “After Sunrise.”

Stream After Sunrise by Circles Around the Sun on Spotify:

For many of us who experienced the Grateful Dead in the 1970s and ’80s, bands like CATS and Grateful Shred, in their quest to create the feeling and atmosphere of a Grateful Dead show, run the risk of falling short. To this listener, though, and as its website claims, Grateful Shred’s “laissez faire vibe infuses the band with a gentle spirit, warmth, and (dare we say it) authenticity” rings persuasively true. Certainly, the twirling, dancing crowd at the Wild Buffalo was infused with the spirit all night, too.

The late writer, cultural observer and dedicated Deadhead, Steve Silberman, following Jerry’s death in 1995, wrote of the quintessential American jam band, “If you were tripping, the music would pour forth celestial architectures, quicksilver glistening with might-be’s, cities of light at the edge of a sea of chaos, monumental forms that could be partially recollected in tranquility, and turned into designs in fabric or clay, golden sentences, streams of bits.” Though I wasn’t tripping, I certainly felt the music’s celestial architectures. No doubt the twirling, dancing crowd at the Wild Buffalo felt them, too.

Check out CATS music and tour schedule on the band’s website here.

More Grateful Shred music and tour info may be found here.

Here are some more photos of Circles Around The Sun/Grateful Shred performing at Bellingham’s Wild Buffalo on Sept. 15, 2024. All photos courtesy of and copyright Mark Caicedo.