Photos: Greensky Bluegrass bring their Dead-influenced sound to the Uptown

All photos by Allison Scavo (Intsta: @scavosphotos)

Greensky Bluegrass
with Daniel Donato
The Uptown Theater
Saturday, February 25

Greensky Bluegrass—a jam band with a fan base most strive for—is as kind as they are talented and hard working. This Grateful Dead-inspired bluegrass band played their new album, Stress Dream, mixed with some of their other fan favorites.

Stress Dreams was written in 2019 but was released in the wake of Covid, foreshadowing the months to follow which basically seemed like a stress dream. Speaking with the band’s upright bassist Mike Devol ahead of the show, his excitement radiated as he discussed how much of an honor it has been to play with the original members of the Grateful Dead.

When the band originally began playing together in a brewery in Kalamazoo, Michigan, they never would have envisioned how far they’ve come or how their fan base is more of a family. This tight-knit community closely, if not perfectly, resembles the beliefs of the Deadheads: stick together.

Devol states that it wasn’t something that Greensky planned for but that “the fan base did that on their own. It was a beautiful thing to witness,” to which I quickly retorted that the following wouldn’t have developed over a band that didn’t promote a safe and loving environment. They did influence that in, my opinion. This band of sweet boys have overcome so much in their 20+ years of creating upbeat bluegrass music.

Openers Daniel Donato are also mainly influenced mainly by Grateful Dead, but this Americana band is dubbed “21st-century cosmic country.” Donato states that “Grateful Dead and Merle Haggard had always lived in my heart, but now, the link was made, and I had a vision on how to keep it alive for this generation that I am coming from.”

All photos by Allison Scavo (Intsta: @scavosphotos).

Greensky Bluegrass

Daniel Donato