Article Contributed by Debra Lambert
Published on 2026-08-24
BERTHA: Grateful Drag | Arvada Center | Arvada, Colorado | August 14th, 2026 - photos by Debra Lambert
Leave it to BERTHA to make a long, strange—and wonderful—trip even more fabulous.
The world’s first Grateful Drag band, BERTHA made a two-night Colorado stop August 14 and 15 amid a break in their summer tour schedule. Friday brought them to the Arvada Center’s outdoor amphitheatre in the northwest Denver metro area; Saturday, they headed up the Poudre Canyon to the Mishawaka Amphitheatre. I caught the Friday show in Arvada.
While BERTHA is still finding its way onto plenty of Deadheads’ radar, those lucky enough to have discovered them—this reviewer included—know just how good they are. The band loves the Dead, and it shows in the music and musicianship. We also come for the fun and the cause.
BERTHA’s roots are political as well as musical. The idea began after the 2020 COVID lockdowns as an all-women Grateful Dead tribute band, then morphed into Grateful Drag in response to Tennessee’s anti-drag legislation. The Nashville-based band made its live debut in 2023, with activism and a passion for supporting freedom of self-expression at its core.
It was raining on Friday night as the crowd gathered and the doors opened—real, welcome rain during our drought. Ponchos and umbrellas were out as people made their way into the Arvada Center pavilion, and the cooler evening was a nice reprieve from the summer heat.
The crowd included BERTHA converts, Deadheads checking them out, and Arvada Center regulars who may have had only a vague idea what they’d bought a ticket for.
The band took the stage to “Lady Marmalade.”
Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?
Let the fun begin.
The show kicked off with “Mississippi Half-Step,” with Caitlin “Mommy” Doyle on lead vocals. Doyle is joined by fellow BERTHA founder Melody “Daddy” Walker on vocals and percussion, rhythm guitarist Mike “Baby Bobby Barbie Bertha” Wheeler, lead guitarist Thomas Bryan “Aunt Bertha” Eaton, bassist Jacob “Big Sissy Bertha” Groopman, drummer Justin “Cousin Bertha” Vorp, and Alex Jordan on keys. Seven musicians with wigs, lashes, eyeshadow, sequins—and plenty happening musically.
Doyle and Walker are terrific singers—and fabulous showgirls.
True to their convictions, the setlist included the Dead’s classic social commentary songs “Ship of Fools,” “Throwing Stones,” and “Let It Grow,” delivered with passion. “Ship of Fools” was introduced with a nod to its relevance today.
“Bird Song” was particularly lovely. Throughout the night, guitarists Wheeler and Eaton were keenly tuned in to each other, frequently exchanging glances as they played.
“Let It Grow” closed the first set, with Wheeler on lead vocals. His voice is well suited to the song, and along with Walker and Doyle, he makes up BERTHA’s core singing trio. The band stretched “Let It Grow” into some fabulous jamming.
BERTHA is musically serious, but the showgirlship is part of the fun. “El Paso” came with a little Mommy-and-Daddy flirtation behind a cowboy hat.
One little kiss, and Felina goodbye.
BERTHA puts on a great show. Alex’s keyboards became the center of a jamming little party, with Mommy and Big Sissy joining in. “Drums” had a primal, hypnotic pulse, with Cousin Bertha’s drum solo moving out from behind the kit to jumping and stomping, ankle bells shaking as Daddy Bertha and Alex Jordan joined in.
BERTHA raises money and awareness for the local LGBTQ+ community at every show. The evening’s beneficiary was The Center on Colfax in Denver, the largest LGBTQ+ community center in the Rocky Mountain region. The lovely Vegina Quartz greeted show-goers before taking the stage at intermission for a sassy dance—those fabulous long fingernails included—and using her considerable charms to help raise money for The Center.
By then, the rain had stopped, and the upper plaza above the GA lawn seating was becoming a twirling, lit-up paradise.
It was the Arvada Center, but there was a party going on. “Feel Like a Stranger,” “Iko Iko,” “The Music Never Stopped,” and “Hard to Handle” kept the energy moving and grooving. I was up and down and all around the amphitheatre, where people were dancing hard, swaying, or simply taking it all in.
One of BERTHA’s gifts is that they give people permission to be freer, flirtier, more expressive, and more playful.
Many at Arvada answered the call: plenty of tie-dye, along with sequins, illuminated fairies, wings, and outfits that let their freak flags fly. My own outfit summed up the mashup pretty well: a silver sequined mini dress, my big flowered bell-bottoms, and Dead-patched denim jacket.
It was a spirited vibe, even if it was a bit more reserved than what I experienced at Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom last December—a fun way to celebrate my birthday. There, that freedom was taken to the hilt. The room was sexy, irreverent, and free-spirited—part gay nightclub mixed into a Dead show—with a crowd already in on the fun and ready to go. More of a throw-your-panties-onstage kind of night.
Arvada, by contrast, was a performing-arts-center audience that included curious newcomers, along with Deadhead and LGBTQ+ families with children—a younger mix than I had seen at the 16+ Cervantes show. At the Arvada Center, your grandparents might be the ushers.
The Center deserves credit for putting BERTHA, in all its drag glory, on its summer concert bill. There was a definite let’s-go-see-what-a-drag-band-is-like element to the evening.
With “Good Lovin’,” BERTHA brought it all to a grand celebration—a fitting finish for a night with so much joy, playfulness, and freedom in the air. By then, everyone was in on the fun, free to bring as much of themselves to it as they pleased.
The children in attendance appeared to be fine.
And BERTHA can play the hell out of the Dead.
