- I
Courtesy
Dark Star channels the Dead
The Dark Star Orchestra
performs Grateful Dead
covers that sound
‘eerily like the band’
Aaron Shakra
Pulse Reporter
When is a cover band not simply a
cover band? When it attempts to
channel, or actually become, the liv
ing embodiment of the past. Dark
Star Orchestra — who will play this
Saturday at the McDonald Theatre
— revives Grateful Dead perform
ances from the band’s long, lan
guorous history and plays them in
their entirety. You might as well call
it “Grateful Dead Redux.”
Dark Star’s performances are
culled from the book “Deadbase,”
which in its 11th iteration features
information on 2,314 concerts the
Grateful Dead played together from
1965 until 1995. The band has also
performed Jerry Garcia Band sets. It
doesn’t do carbon copy covers of
performances, but rather improvis
es in the same parts of the songs that
the Grateful Dead did. The audience
isn’t privy to which set or era the
band is drawing from for its perform
ances. This information is an
nounced afterwards, but the band
said keen fans will probably be able
to pick up on clues.
“We don’t do a note for note thing,
but we stay in character,” John
Kadlecik, guitarist and “Jerry Gar
cia” of the band said. He has played
"We all have a mutual
love for the
arrangements that the
Dead used to play their
own music"
John Kadlecik
guitarist
guitar since 1985, and is also a clas
sically trained violin player. He said
he found the violin to be a limited in
strument for improvisation whereas
in picking up the guitar, he found im
provisation “a given.”
“Once you get into the band thing,
any way you want to go is the right
way,” Kadlecik said.
Dark Star Orchestra and its six
other members have played 800
shows since its inception in late
summer of 1997. Kadlecik said he
and the other band members have
“deeply explored every area” of the
Grateful Dead’s music, both collec
tively and on each of their own time.
“By listening, we’ve acquired
these personal databases,” he said.
“Individually, we’ve all listened to
enormous amounts of the recordings
—just of out fun.”
The band’s history is rooted in the
Chicago Grateful Dead scene. Kadle
cik previously played in the band
Hairball Willie, who performed both
originals and Dead covers. He noted a
distinction between Dead cover
bands and “dead-head” bands and
said Dark Star originated from net
working in the dead-head band scene.
“We all have a mutual love for the
arrangements that the Dead used to
play their own music,” he said,
adding that the band pays attention
to the smallest detail for its Dead
sets, including their musical equip
ment and sound palette at the time.
Band publicist Dave Weissman
mentioned one “hair-raising factor”
Dark Star Orchestra has the poten
tial to elicit for Grateful Dead fans.
“Essentially, you can kinda tap
into the spirit of why they’re doing
what they’re doing,” Weissman said.
“I’m not saying Dark Star channels
the Dead, but they try.”
"Essentially, you can
kinda tap into the spirit
of why they're doing
what they're doing."
Dave Weissman
band publicist
Downtown Deb, host of the long
running “Dead Air” which airs every
Saturday night on KLCC, said she
finds the Dead’s music “very power
ful and healing” and called Dark Star
Orchestra “very professional.”
“They sound remarkably, eerily like
the band,” she said. “It’s an emotional
thing hearing the music you love.”
The show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets
are $18 in advance, available at both
Fastixx outlets and the McDonald
Theatre box office.
Contact the Pulse reporter
at aaronshakra@dailyemerald.com.
March 5,6,7,8 813,14,15
Begins at 8pm
Ticket sold at the UO Ticket Office on
the main floor of the EMU (Erb Mem.
Union), (all 541-^46-^63
This play contains Strong Sexual Content.
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Community
Center for the
Perfomiuj Arts
■ Friday
8th &
Lincoln
Usbopaloozalll:
Tribe 8, Cod-Des, Aisha Ayers,
Laura Love Duo
Iordan Blumbei^-Emve
Rock, Hip Hop, Spoken Ward, Folk,
Performance Art
pm
$7 UO students, tio general public
■Saturday ■
Usbopaloozalll:
Station Waj, Shelley Doty X-Tet,
WYMPROV!, Arjuna Criest,
Chris Pureka, Iordan Blumber^-Em^e
Hard Rock, Rock/Funk, Comedy, Folk,
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■ Wednesday ■
anticon
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Hip Hop
l:oo pm
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■.Thursday ■
California Cuitar Trio
wrHi Tom Griesjraber
Acoustic Guitars/Chapman Stick
l:oo pm
$i$ advance, $17 door
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UO School of Music
Chamber Music Series
St. Petersburg String Quartet
Don’t miss this award-winning Russian quartet as they perform
compelling music of their homeland: the romantic Three Novelettes
by Glazunov, the emotional Quartet No. 2 by Shostakovich, and a
new work which will have received its world premiere the night
before: Rhapsody for Guitar and String Quartet by
Zurab Nadarejshvili—with the brilliant classical
guitarist Paul Galbraith joining the quartet.
Thurs., March 6*8 p.m.
BEALL CONCERT HALL
Tickets $27, $22, $12 at the Hult Center
(682-5000) or EMU Ticket Office (346-4363).
Free Musical Insights with Robert Hurwitz, 7 p.m.