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Over the course of its 15-year career, Dark Star Orchestra has made a living re-creating the music of the Grateful Dead.
Naturally, it's easy to call this orchestra a tribute or cover band hyperfocused on the music of hippiedom's most iconic jam band.
The members of this seven-piece group, which plays The NorVa on Monday night, prefer a different descriptor.
"We are a cover band in the same way that a symphony orchestra is a cover band for Mozart or Beethoven," said drummer Dino English. "We don't dress like them or put on a persona. It's all about the music. We're just trying to give a little slice of what a Grateful Dead concert was like and to provide the kind of ritual experience that they put in place."
The orchestra transcends the tribute band tag by becoming, in a sense, cultural archaeologists performing exact set lists from the Dead's catalog of nearly 2,500 live performances.
And just like the Dead, this orchestra has its
own traveling band of followers.
"We have fans that will come and see a whole tour or a long string of shows," English said.
Perhaps a more significant stamp of approval is the fact that the five original members of the Grateful Dead have at one time joined Dark Star Orchestra onstage during one of its performances.
Even without being approved by the Dead, Dark Star Orchestra has done the research. All combined, the lifelong deadheads attended more than 1,000 of the Dead's performances before the classic rockers disbanded after the 1995 death of founder Jerry Garcia.
In concert, the orchestra adapts its stage positioning, vocal arrangements and musical equipment to match the historical concert they're re-creating. Which particular show the band performs is not announced ahead of time and is revealed only at the end of each concert.
Although the orchestra members are faithful to the original framework of the material, the band isn't trying to clone the original experience.
"There's a misconception that we play their shows note for note, and that couldn't be further from the truth," English said. "We go for the arrangement of the songs, but when it comes to the free-form jam parts, it's just us playing from our hearts."
That more than anything is how Dark Star Orchestra manages to keep the music of the Grateful Dead alive.
"It wouldn't be right to do it any other way," said English of their approach. "The Dead was all about improvisation."
That spontaneity also keeps things interesting for the band, but it's fair to wonder whether the members ever grow tired of playing someone else's music. In fact, they do write their own material, including "Run Mary," a song co-written with longtime Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter. But that doesn't mean the band will stop raising the dead anytime soon.
"We write our own stuff for fun, but we're not looking to inject that into Dark Star," said English. "Our mission is to play Grateful Dead music."
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