Article Contributed by Gabriel David Barkin
Published on 2026-03-26
photo by Gabriel David Barkin
Grahame Lesh and a mighty crew of fabulously talented friends played four consecutive shows in the San Francisco Bay Area this past weekend. The annual Unbroken Chain benefit shows were billed as A Celebration of the Life & Music of Phil Lesh – with (as the promo materials said) “additional emphasis on Bobby Weir.”
Lesh’s friends for these west coast shows featured musical luminaries whose resumes include stints with Dead & Co., The Allman Brothers, the Rolling Stones, Phil & Friends, Wolf Brothers, Wilco, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Dawes, Trey Anastasio Band, Jefferson Starship, and more. The full list of cast members appears in the show summaries below.
These concerts benefited Canal Alliance, a nonprofit organization in Marin County (where the Lesh family lives) that has supported immigrant and Latino communities since 1982 with programming that includes language instruction, food support, and immigration rights education services. Learn more or donate at https://www.canalalliance.org
Your humble reporter attended three of the four shows, and additional reporting below was provided by Larry Harris.
THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 2026
WHERE: The Junction Beer Garden in Mill Valley
THE VIBE: A semi-impromptu Terrapin Crossroads (TXR) gathering, just like ol’ times. This show was announced just a few days before the Fillmore run – and with a 2 pm start time, the ambiance of a “businessman’s special” filled the sunny backyard venue. In the midst of a heat wave, early arrivals were glad for the shade cast from the umbrellas set up on the stage and two towering mimosa trees that loomed over the musicians. Killer pizza and beer helped too.
Toward the end of the show, Lesh reminisced about TXR, “and all those days when my dad would just decide at 1pm that he’d play in the bar at four.”
SOMETHING SPECIAL: The Junction show was billed as a “Kick-Off Party & Blood Drive.” As many as fifty blood donors got in for free after dropping a pint in the mobile facility out front.
THE BAND: Grahame Lesh, Dan “Lebo” Lebowitz, Jason Crosby, John Molo, Danny Luehring, Danny Eisenberg, Natalie Cressman, Elliott Peck, Brian Rashap, Greg Loiacono.
GUEST APPEARANCES: Pete Sears, Eric D. Johnson of Fruit Bats. Every time Lesh introduced Johnson on Thursday and again at the Fillmore on Friday, he added the tag line “of Fruit Bats.” My guess is Johnson asked him to do that since no other intros mentioned anyone else’s band. (Helpful hint: check out Fruit Bats, and also Bonny Light Horseman, another Johnson collaboration.)
MVP: Pete Sears, because the dude whose credits includes the bass line on Rod Stewart’s “Maggie May” and all of Jefferson Starship’s classic 70s hits is rock royalty.
SOMETHING ELSE SPECIAL: Three sets! The sun was setting above Mount Tamalpais by the time the band played “Ripple.”
Each set featured one of the three verses from “Viola Lee Blues.” To start the show, the band members huddled to quickly discuss who would play which note in the introductory discordant twang that kicks off the Grateful Dead’s version of the jug band folk song. Lesh asked his bandmates, “What chord is Molo playing?” (Molo is, of course, the drummer.)
SET LIST HIGHLIGHT: The first time the Grateful Dead played “Unbroken Chain” on stage was on March 19, 1995, over two decades after it was released on From the Mars Hotel. The Junction show was the anniversary of that bust-out, and they delivered a brilliant version of that song.
FRIDAY, MARCH 20, 2026
WHERE: The Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco.
THE VIBE: Any visitor to the Fillmore knows there is always a supply of free apples in the main hallway. For these shows, the washtub of red apples was framed by fresh-cut roses, and a portrait of honoree Phil Lesh was propped behind. Upstairs in the world-famous Fillmore Poster Room, there were more roses and an easel sporting a picture of Lesh and Bob Weir. (For the uninitiated, the Filmore hallways are adorned with numerous posters and photographs from the venues storied history. The largest photo on display in the auditorium is a shot hanging above the stairs of Jerry Garcia with his fist held high.)
THE BAND: Grahame Lesh, Benmont Tench, Jason Crosby, Taylor Goldsmith, Griffin Goldsmith, Elliott Peck, Barry Sless, Eric Krasno, John Molo, Don Was, Natalie Cressman, Jennifer Hartswick. Guest appearance by Eric D. Johnson (“of Fruit Bats,” of course).
MVP: Man oh man, Hartswick’s voice on “Deep Elm Blues” was epically soul-stirring! The ensemble arranged the traditional folk song as a rollicking N’awlins gospel number, and Hartswick was brilliant on the lead vocal. Her TAB bandmate Cressman reinforced the NOLA atmosphere with an appropriately brassy trombone solo.
SOMETHING SPECIAL: My note from the evening says there was a “wall of sound, with elements of both the Dead and also the other Phil, Phil Spector.” With so many brilliant instrumentalists on stage, there was often a sweet canopy of harmonic cacophony – for instance, during “Slipknot,” when both Lesh and Sless soloed simultaneously (there must be a word for that!) on top of a multi-layered, sonic wall.
SET LIST HIGHLIGHT: You’ll always get a big hometown cheer for the line in “Mission in the Rain” that says, “There’s some satisfaction in a San Francisco rain.” But even that roar in the second set opener paled compared to the thunderous crowd-participation moment during the “Touch of Grey” encore, the final chorus where the pronoun shifts to “WE will survive!”
The younger Lesh is the only scion of the Grateful Dead who is making a career as a musician. (In addition to playing shows like this featuring Dead stuff specifically, Lesh also records and tours with Midnight North.) But even with just two members of the Grateful Dead still with us in body, the spirit and legacy of that band survives. It survives in the millions of Deadheads and the literally hundreds, if not thousands, of Dead cover bands – more, I’m sure, than any musical act in history with the possible exception of Elvis Presley.
So no, we’re not done yet. We will survive.
SATURDAY, MARCH 21, 2026
WHERE: The Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco.
THE BAND: Grahame Lesh, Tom Hamilton, Jason Crosby, Natalie Cressman, Jennifer Hartswick, Oteil Burbridge, Nels Cline, Jackie Greene, Cody Dickenson, Nicki Bluhm, Elliott Peck.
Jay Lane was on the bill, he played only on the encore, “Truckin’.” Mihali Savoulidis from Twiddle was a special guest.
THE REVIEW: I’m turning the review reins here over to my friend Larry Harris since I was not at this show. (Lest you think I was slacking though, I instead spent my evening first at a private party with local garage pop quartet the SHE’S, then caught most of the Barr Brothers set across town and ended up in the Mission grooving to Third Mind. But it sounds like I missed a rager at the Fillmore!))
Here’s Larry’s take, which he texted to me the next day:
First Set very slow. Second set off the charts. One of the best Fillmore sets I have seen in years. [That’s saying a lot for Larry.] Totally rocking JRAD jamming. Five guitarists at one point. Guitarmageddon!
So many teases. Jason Crosby mash of “Friend of the Devil” and Nirvana’s “Lithium.” The “St. Stephen” jam with “Whole Lotta Love” in it was off the hook.
Encore “Truckin’.” At the end, Oteil gave two loud Phil Bombs to end the song and show. Heartfelt by everyone. Epic.
Man, I need to rest and recuperate the body!
Don’t worry, Larry. You will survive.
SUNDAY, MARCH 22, 2026
WHERE: The Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco.
THE VIBE: These shows were packed, man! I’ve been to the Fillmore countless times, and I can’t recall ever seeing the front hallway (where those apples live) full of dancers. Most of the kids in the hall weren’t even born when Garcia died. But whether by nature or nurture (studying Tik-Tok videos of 1980s Deadhead hallways?), they move with the same groove as ever.
Up front on the auditorium dance floor, where a lot of the early arrivals on the rail were TXR veterans, there was actually a ton of room. Go figure.
THE BAND: Grahame Lesh, Holly Bowling, Rob Barraco, Oteil Burbridge, Eric Krasno, Alex Koford, Eliott Peck, Nicki Bluhm, Stu Allen, Ross James, Karl Denson. Jay Lane was on the bill for this evening too, but his drum kit remained idle all night, except for Oteil taking a turn on one song in the second set. (Kudos to Koford for holding the rhythm all night.)
SPECIAL GUEST: Scott Law sat in for the entire second set.
MVP: Always Oteil. His face paint alone earns him high marks. Everything about this dude just exudes “cool.”
SOMETHING SPECIAL: Several things, in fact. Again, a split “Viola Lee Blues” popping up throughout the first set. Bluhm’s vocal on “Easy Wind.” Burbridge’s vocal on a dreamy “Comes a Time.” A nasty! jam in the second set “Other One.”
Opinions were split when the “Terrapin Station” suite toward the end of the night segued from the rip-snortin’ musical refrain into the mellow Robert Hunter tune “Jack O’ Roses.” One friend said it “sucked the energy out of the room.” Your results will vary. There was no shortage of energy a few minutes later though when, at the very stoke of midnight, the anthemic, tribal beat of Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away” shook the crowd to their bones.
SET LIST HIGHLIGHT: Hands down, it was “New Potato Caboose,” a Phil Lesh rarity retired by the Grateful Dead from their set lists after 1969. Lesh wrote the song with lyricist Robert Petersen, and he frequently challenged his Phil & Friends cohorts to play it in the 2000s. Denson’s flute solo was the perfect fit for the jangly, jazzy tune.
Sunday was the longest of the three Fillmore shows, with almost three-and-a-half hours of music. By the time the double encore of “Unbroken Chain” and “Ripple” was over, all that was left was a free poster and the promise that Terrapin Nation would survive to do it again real soon.
