Dark Star Orchestra makes their annual return to KC on Wednesday

Dark Star Orchestra at Skull & Roses, April 2022. // photo by AllisonS cavo

How can a particular sound be perfectly recreated while promoting individualism and maintaining traditional context?

One should simply ask Dark Star Orchestra.

Deadheads—who can pinpoint a specific show based on just a few notes—attend Dark Star shows in wonderment as they try to decipher which exact show the band is reviving. From the moment a seasoned Deadhead walks into a Dark Star show, the stage set up notes which era of Grateful Dead they will be playing that night: the embodiment of love at first sight.

It is a rare occurrence when the band announces which show they will be playing beforehand, but even announced shows are still filled with surprises.

One of the fondest memories I have of Dark Star Orchestra involves me traveling across the country with a car full of hippies, in true deadhead fashion, just to see them recreate a treasured show. DSO’s sold-out Red Rocks debut in 2018 welcomed Grateful Dead vocalist Donna Jean Godchaux Mackay to the stage, where they played the set list from the Dead’s original debut at the acclaimed venue, exactly 40 years to the day—July 8, 1978.

During the show’s ” Drums ” portion, the band’s children and crewmembers came out on stage. My eyes welled up with tears as the children played and laughed. As a special education teacher, I went from “something in my eye” to ugly cries as a few kids overcame physical limitations and disabilities to perform the percussion segment of the show while sporting grins of pure bliss.

As DSO transitioned into “Space,” the kids gleefully exited the stage. It was a moment in time that faultlessly encapsulated the aura of the Grateful Dead, 40 years later with the same sets, the same feel, and the same love for this band.

Dark Star Orchestra plays the Madrid on Wednesday, November 15. Details on that show here.