Dark Star Orchestra is not just a Grateful Dead cover band. It really recreates the Dead by playing exactly the same set of one of the Dead's 2,314 classic concerts down to the same set order replete with the same breaks and intermissions, similar placement of microphones on stage and even the same guitars and amplifiers from the same era. DSO does not tell the fanatic Dead audience which show it is recreating until after the performance. Since DSO has already played 654 different Dead shows, they are good for at least 1,660 concerts.
Dark Star recently performed at the Dead's old stomping grounds, The Warfield Theater in San Francisco, and the Dead's Bob Weir not only took in his first Dark Star show but also sat in for nearly an hour. DSO's "pseudo" Weir, Rob Eaton, sat out. His reasoning: There could not be two Bob Weir's on stage at the same time.
