Dark Star Orchestra

Dark Star Orchestra Featured on Syracuse CBS News 5 for the 5/8/07 Ithaca show, recreating the GD's 5/8/77 on its 30th Anniversary



Each night, the Chicago-based band decides on performing one show from the 2,500 that the Grateful Dead performed during their 30 year tenure as fathers of improvisational rock. As a chamber orchestra interprets Bach or Mozart, Dark Star Orchestra presents the complete original set list, song by song, and in order, recreating historic music with uncanny faithful interpretation.



DSO is drawing national attention with their true-to-life performances. Rolling Stone praises "Dark Star Orchestra's fanatical attention to detail." USA Today says DSO is "channeling the Dead" and the Washington Post declares them "the hottest Grateful Dead tribute act going." Dallas Morning News affirms DSO is "the next best thing to being there", the Denver Post describes Dark Star Orchestra as a perfection-oriented practitioner of homage and the Associated Press notes that DSO takes its act to a level of detail that befits a rock band famous for its fanatical following.



The group has its craft so well-refined that even members of the Grateful Dead themselves, rhythm guitarist/singer Bob Weir, drummer Bill Kreutzmann, vocalist Donna Jean Godchaux, and keyboardists Vince Welnick and Tom Constanten, have appeared on stage and performed with these live music interpreters. The group recently performed their 1700th show and the most recent release is a three CD set of the band's special 30th anniversary recreation of the Dead's infamous 5/8/77 show at Barton Hall from Ithaca, NY.



Precision is king with this group, which position the stage plot based on the year of Grateful Dead show to be performed. Dark Star Orchestra adapts their phrasing, voice arrangements, and even arranges specific musical equipment for the various eras in which they perform. At the end of every performance, the band announces the date and venue where the original show just covered took place. Dark Star Orchestra dips into every incarnation of the Dead, so most fans can see shows that happened long before they were born.



Were given a canvas with a boundary, whatever the stage set up is the framework and all of the painting that we do within that framework is unique to us, says rhythm guitarist/vocalist Rob Eaton. So we offer the sound and the structure, but all the stroking and painting is all us. So its fresh at the same time and also historically correct.



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