Dark Star Orchestra Makes a Deep Connection at the Fox

Dark Star Orchestra Honors Bob Weir’s Legacy with Donation to The Rex Foundation – The Fox Theater | Oakland, CA | February 7th, 2026 | photos by Gabriel David Barkin –

Dark Star Orchestra (DSO) played a very special show at the Fox Theater in Oakland on Saturday night. In addition to the usual high-caliber Grateful Dead tribute for which DSO is famous, the sold-out crowd was treated to an acoustic set with Rob Eaton and Jeff Mattson playing acoustic guitars once owned by Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia. The appearance of those iconic instruments in the wake of the still-reverberating death of Weir added poignancy and strengthened the connection between the band that once was and the music that still is. 

Those connections run deep indeed. Before the show, DSO made an onstage presentation of a sizeable donation to the Rex Foundation, the charitable organization founded by the Grateful Dead. Executive Director Cameron Sears, accepting the large check (both in amount and also physical size), told the crowd the foundation was created by the Dead “[not] out of a sense of obligation; it was something they wanted to do.” To date, the organization has distributed over $10 million to worthy causes around the globe. (Cameron also mentioned that “an anonymous donor” backstage matched DSO’s $10,000 donation on the spot!)

Let’s pull that “connections” thread a bit furthur (sic). The Rex Foundation was named for Grateful Dead roadie and tour manager Rex Jackson. Another longtime roadie for the band, Kidd Candelario, was sitting onstage in the wings all night at the Fox as a guest of the band. Wheels within wheels, circles within circles.  

The connectivity was underscored by the presence on stage of Weir and Garcia’s historic guitars (more on those instruments later), which were loaned by Grateful Guitars Foundation founder Andy Logan for the Saturday evening show. DSO’s Eaton, Mattson, and Skip Vangelas also played several electric guitars and basses gifted to them by the Foundation at both Fox shows this weekend, including replicas of Garica’s Wolf and Phil Lesh’s Alembic “Mission Control” bass.    

That’s all fitting for a band that has been a fixture of the post-Jerry Garcia era of Grateful Dead music for almost three decades. It’s notable that DSO has played more than 3,000 shows since their founding in 1997. For the record, the Grateful Dead only played a little over 2,300 gigs. (Has anyone noticed that the band’s all packed and gone?)  

Let’s parse this out: DSO currently has only one original member, singer Lisa Mackey. So instrumentally speaking, it’s almost like the current DSO lineup is a cover band of … DSO. Which is a cover band of the Grateful Dead. Who themselves were somewhat of a cover band – more than half the songs on their debut album were covers, and they played oodles of other people’s songs throughout their touring career.

Twelve of the 26 songs played by DSO on Saturday night were songs not written by the Grateful Dead. A few were rarely played by the Dead themselves, including the Derek and the Dominos classic “Keep On Growing” and the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows.” On the other hand, “I Know Your Rider” (following “China Cat Sunflower” in DSO’s second set) was the cover song played more than any other by the “original” band.

That’s all well and good, right? It fits the vibe of the audience too. As an 80s deadhead, my scene was something of a “cover” of the 60s Woodstock era – a bunch of hippies driving around the country in VW vans flouting the convention of “normal people.” Likewise, the Fox Theater audience on Saturday had plenty of twirling dancers in their teens and twenties who were “covering” the hallway dance moves my friends and I were “covering” forty years ago.

So yeah, on with the show!

Saturday night was an “elective” show, meaning that DSO did not do their usual “schtick.” Most of their performances are song-by-song recreations of a specific Grateful Dead show. But ironically, I’ve only seen DSO five times over the past three decades – and four of those shows were “elective” nights.

That being said, the first set was more or less of a mid-80s set, albeit without any of the songs that actually premiered in that decade. Songs like “Cold Rain and Snow,” “Jack Straw,” and “The Music Never Stopped” were staples of that era.

The second set began with the aforementioned acoustic segment. At first, only Mattson and Eaton were on stage, each playing their historic guitars directly into a live mic. In front of them were pictures of Weir and Garcia playing the very same guitars “back in the day” as we say.  (In addition to the guitars, The Grateful Guitars Foundation also provided the onstage photos , which featured shots taken by Susana Millman, Jay Blakesberg, and Brian Markovitz.) 

Two of the songs in the acoustic set, “Wake Up, Little Susie” and “Dark Hollow,” were recorded for the live Grateful Dead album “History of the Grateful Dead, Volume One (Bear’s Choice)” with Garcia playing the 1943 Martin D-28 that Mattson held on stage at the Fox. Peter Rowan also played that Martin during the seminal “Old and In the Way” performances with Garcia.

Weir’s guitar, played by Mattson on Saturday, is an Alvarez WY-2 acoustic with a Modulus carbon fiber neck and Sunrise magnetic soundhole pickup. (The guitar was designed by the maker specifically for Weir, hence the “W” in the name.) It’s a mid-90s guitar, and Weir played it on stage with the Dead in 1994 and 1995 – including the performance of “When I Paint My Masterpiece” during the band’s final show before Garcia died. He continued to use the Alvarez occasionally during the post-Jerry era while playing with Ratdog and in other acoustic performances.

Singer Mackey joined the guitarists and those iconic guitars to sing harmonies on “Ripple” to close the mini-set. Garcia’s Martin was used to record that very song for the “American Beauty” album in 1970!

A rousing “St. Stephen” led into the “Drums” segment, which featured several drummers joining DSO’s Dino English and Rob Koritz. After their turn, the drummers took a break while Mattson, keyboardist Rob Barraco, and bassist Vangelas segued from “Space” into a moody version of “Tomorrow Never Knows.” Then with the entire ensemble assemble on stage, DSO lifted the energy with Stephen Stills’ “Love the One You’re With” before diving back into the raucous end bit of “Stephen.”

Oddly, DSO had played Weir’s “One More Saturday Night” on Friday at the Fox, but they pulled out a meaningful Saturday reference in “Mission in the Rain” near the end of the set. (The lyric I’m referring to is, “Tomorrow will be Sunday born of rainy Saturday.” It wasn’t raining on Saturday in Oakland, so let’s call it poetic license.) To close the show, DSO encored with “The Weight,” the classic tune by The Band that the Dead covered numerous times in the 90s.

Lord the band kept us so busy, we forgot about the time.

SET LIST:

Set 1:

Cold Rain and Snow

Jack Straw

Hey Pocky A-Way

Althea

Cassidy

Brown-Eyed Women

Black-Throated Wind

Keep On Growing

She Belongs to Me

The Music Never Stopped

Set 2 – Acoustic Part:

Wake Up, Little Susie

Deep Elem Blues

Dark Hollow

Ripple

Set 2 – Electric Part:

China Cat Sunflower

I Know You Rider

He’s Gone

St. Stephen

Drums

Space

Tomorrow Never Knows

Love the One You’re With

St. Stephen (reprise)

Not Fade Away

Mission in the Rain

Going Down the Road Feeling Bad

Encore:

The Weight