Grateful Shred recently brought the music, if not the spirit, of the Grateful Dead to Bellingham’s Wild Buffalo House of Music. And though, as the saying goes there’s nothing like a Grateful Dead concert, for nearly three hours their songs, and soul, once again filled the air.
With the recent passing of Bobby Weir, the last vestiges of a physical connection to those days (drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzman continue to perform occasionally) are fading away. Spiritually, however, hunger for a connection to the Grateful Dead’s musical and cultural influences remains strong. Bands like Dark Star Orchestra, Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, and over 500 “tribute” bands continue to carry that world forward, determined to not let it fade away.
Between 1980 and 1982, I attended about a half dozen Grateful Dead performances. Those shows were so many lives ago I’d almost forgotten what a Dead show felt like. But at the Wild Buffalo House of Music on Feb. 3, I found myself right back in that mind space. Much like the mysterious alchemy that brought together the Dead’s members from disparate musical disciplines, Grateful Shred stirs that same musical brew. Dan Horne’s ranging bass recalls Phil Lesh’s classical training, John Lee Shannon and Austin McCutcheon mirror Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir’s guitar interplay, while Adam MacDougall’s keys embody the various players the Dead housed over the years (Godchaux, Mydland, Welnick, among many others). Corey Rose and Chris English anchored a drum section, pushing and pulling the tempo the same way that Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart did. Finally, Mikaela Davis’s vocals provide a welcome female presence onstage, approximating, but never imitating, Donna Godchaux’s role.
The high energy opening of “Promised Land > Greatest Story Ever Told” kicked off the evening, immediately bringing the crowd to its feet, stealing and putting wide smiles on our faces. The romanticism of “They Love Each Other” and “Sweet Baby,” the latter showcasing Mikaela’s lead vocals, gave way to the classic “Friend of the Devil,” in a rendering more faithful to the pastoral bluegrassy presentation from American Beauty (1970) than the vaguely reggae version the Dead adopted for live performance. The first set ended with an electric version of “On the Road Again,” originally performed as an acoustic piece on 1981’s acoustic “Reckoning.”
Grateful Shred Setlist – Feb. 3, 2026 (from onstage list)
Set 1
Promised Land > Greatest Story Ever Told
They Love Each Other
Sweet Baby
Friend of the Devil
You Ain’t Woman Enough
Viola Lee Blues
On the Road Again
Set 2
Help On the Way > Slipknot > Franklin’s Tower
Mama Tried
Ain’t No Bread in the Breadbox
Here Comes Sunshine
Drums > Alligator > Space
It Must Have Been the Roses
Scarlet Begonias > Fire on the Mountain
Encore
My Sisters and Brothers
Grateful Shred’s ability to ease into the Dead’s improvisational ethos shone convincingly during the second set opener, “Help on the Way > Slipknot > Franklin’s Tower.” In many ways, that gorgeous and challenging suite brings together all of the Dead’s strengths, transforming it from a jazzy, rocking virtuosic piece to the dance tune that is Franklin’s Tower. Horne’s bass parts roamed over the changing tempos and complex melody, merging expertly with Shannon’s arpeggios during the “Help > Slip” segment inexorably building the tension until the sweet release of the band dropping into “Frank.” At that moment, memories of those early 1980s shows came rushing back to me.
By this point, the Wild Buffalo had become a full-fledged dance party, whether simply tapping feet, bobbing heads, or twirling in the back of the room. The Grateful Dead’s music has always been about movement, whether following the band on tour, dancing, or simply allowing oneself to be carried away somewhere, anywhere. Mickey Hart has said, “the transformative power of the Grateful Dead is really the essence of it; it’s what it can do to your consciousness…I mean, the business of the Grateful Dead is transportation.” Or as concert promoter Bill Graham once said, “They’re not the best at what they do, they’re the only ones that do what they do.”
Watch Grateful Shred perform “Scarlet Begonias” and “Fire on the Mountain” live in Toronto, Canada, on YouTube:
The set proceeded with a Drums into Alligator into a brief Space section before a gorgeous “It Must Have Been the Roses.” “Scarlet Begonias” confirmed for many of us that sense of deja vu with its lyric, “I had one of those flashes, I’d been there before, I’d been there before.” “Fire on the Mountain” was given the Jimmy Cliff treatment with drummer Chris English taking lead vocals to end the second set. Quickly returning to the stage we got the Charles Johnson cover (as performed by the Jerry Garcia Band), “My Sisters and Brothers” to close out the show, it’s “when we make it to the Promised Land” chorus neatly bringing us full circle.
Watch a live performance on YouTube of “My Sisters and Brothers” by the Jerry Garcia Band on YouTube:
When Parklife DC covered Grateful Shred (and another Dead influenced band, Circles Around the Sun) in September 2024, we quoted Deadhead and late writer, Steve Silberman, who’s description of the Dead’s music still rings true: “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.” Whether one is tripping or not, Grateful Shred’s loving and faithful rendering of Grateful Dead (and Dead-adjacent) music still brings forth those streams of bits, golden sentences, and celestial architectures.
To many, the Grateful Dead remain the quintessential American band. The Dead’s music fills a chapter of the American songbook alongside that from such immortals as Aaron Copland, the Gershwins, and Scott Joplin. Incorporating influences from across the hemisphere; bluegrass, jazz, rock, country & western, reggae, folk, blues, gospel, and, of course, psychedelia, during their 30-year recording and performing lifespan (1965-1995), the Grateful Dead evolved from a simple “jug band” into, though certainly not by intention, a musical and cultural juggernaut. As Bob Weir once said, “The Beatles were why we turned from a jug band into a rock ‘n’ roll band. What we saw them doing was impossibly attractive. I couldn’t think of anything else more worth doing.” Although one might identify individual songs as belonging to one genre or another, the music often wove interchangeably between categories, making it undeniably Grateful Dead music. Thirty years after the fact, Grateful Shred showed us why the Dead’s music is still worth doing.
For tour information, videos, and live recordings please visit Grateful Shred’s website.
Here are some more photos of Grateful Shred at Bellingham’s Wild Buffalo House of Music on Feb. 3, 2026. All photos courtesy of and copyright Mark Caicedo.
