In fact, while Dead On Live performs regularly, the Cap show marks only the second time the tribute act has staged the Wall, the first time being a Halloween show in 2014 at New Jersey’s Paramount Theatre. The Dead never brought the real Wall of Sound to the Cap though, which makes the production all the more important to Muller and Dermer. The Cap, as it’s known locally, is considered sacred ground in Grateful Dead circles, as the group played there 18 times in the early 1970s, including a string of landmark shows in February, 1971. “Who else transcribes Grateful Dead note for note? So two crazy guys got together and put this thing on stage.” Live Sound Pros Acquire UltraSound “I thought he was crazy-and maybe he is-but so am I!” he laughed. Still, when fellow Deadhead Jason Dermer of Asbury Audio (Asbury Park, NJ) suggested a few years ago that they attempt the Wall of Sound, Muller was taken aback. No stranger to exacting live performance-he was in Shania Twain’s live band for 10 years, working with Mutt Lange, to name just one gig-Muller writes musical notations for entire albums and concerts and then performs them on stage with seasoned pit musicians from the New York scene. That’s what New Jersey-based tribute act Dead On Live does on stage regularly for rapturous audiences, but on December 14, the group will take it to the next level by performing at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, NY through a recreation of the Grateful Dead’s legendary Wall of Sound audio system.įounded in 2010, Dead On Live is the musical brainchild of Marc Muller. With a jam at the Louisville show that moves from “Weather Report Suite” through “The Other One” and beyond, this set makes a fine stop on the Dead’s Road Trips series.Port Chester, NY (December 6, 2018)-When is a jamband not quite a jamband? When it’s playing meticulously transcribed, note-for-note recreations of legendary shows by the most popular jamband ever, The Grateful Dead. As the song eventually reaches nearly a half hour, the Dead heads for space and orbits happily, seeming reluctant to reenter the atmosphere. Garcia also tears into a particularly entrancing run as they stretch out on “Playing in the Band,” where the band jams like they had been waiting all day for that moment. Blues,” bumping out in a friendly thunder, as Keith Godchaux’s piano runs along with Jerry Garcia’s lead guitar.

At the Des Moines show, Phil Lesh’s bass sounds are downright bulbous on their own during “U.S. Turn up these discs and imagine standing before that sound monster. With audience members gazing up at the structure, Bob Weir noted at one show, “Yeah, and to think we once had to cancel a gig because we couldn’t find an extension cord.” The set’s booklet provides details and photos of the behemoth sound system, which came to be built as a wall behind the band due to some smaller venues on the ’74 tour being unable to otherwise accommodate the mountain of equipment. 3: Wall of Sound is a two-CD set that offers highlights from two shows during that period, each on one disc: 6/16/74 at State Fairgrounds, Des Moines, Iowa and shortly after on 6/18/74 at Freedom Hall in Louisville, Kentucky. In 1974, Grateful Dead unveiled the massive “wall of sound” that had long been in the works to achieve how they could best present their live experience.

Wall of sound grateful dead