Pop Break Live: Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration at The PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, NJ on Saturday August 29, 2026
What I’m about to say may sound absurd on its face, but hear me out: Jerry Garcia was profoundly underrated.
Now, I understand that as a singer and guitarist for The Grateful Dead, Garcia is forever part of the S-tier pantheon of American artists whose work has shaped world culture in a myriad of ways that will be kaleidoscopically felt for as long as human beings exist somewhere in this plane of reality.
But, for all of the acclaim Garcia has received as a guitarist and, to an unfortunately lesser extent, a singer, where he remains deeply underrecognized is as a composer.
Garcia is credited as a writer or co-writer on upwards of nearly 200 pieces of music (depending on if one counts improvisations and collaborative instrumental jams) – including such now-standards as “Friend of the Devil,” “Ripple,” “Uncle John’s Band” and “Casey Jones” (and that’s just looking at his output from 1970!) – and yet he is almost never included in conversations of the 20th Century’s great American composers. Hopefully, that can change soon – and experiencing the Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration is a great place to start.
The concept is beautifully simple – some of Garcia’s most iconic compositions, and select cover songs he applied his distinct interpretational style to – played by a multi-generational band of Garcia’s peers and followers, augmented by the lush backing of a symphony orchestra, to the delight of Deadheads in amphitheaters across the country.
The celebration returned to the road in late August and early September for a limited run of dates in the Eastern United States, and the Aug. 29 engagement at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel was nothing short of sublime.
With organist Melvin Seals and singer Jacklyn LaBranch of the Jerry Garcia Band joined by singer and guitarist Tom Hamilton of Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, bassist Grahame Lesh of Midnight North, journeyman drummer John Morgan Kimock and singer Kanika Moore of Doom Flamingo in the roster of this iteration of the Garcia Symphonic Celebration,
Highlights abounded, as the rich, supportive orchestral accompaniment brought out dimensions in Garcia’s compositions that were only previously implied and suggested in these songs’ original rock band-focused incarnations. “Shakedown Street” abounded with funky, silky grandeur that felt like a dispatch from a long-lost Blaxploitation film, the horn blasts on “Deal” made it sound like the classiest banger Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes never recorded, “Touch of Grey” showed that this orchestration could showcase the complexities and nuances underlying in Garcia’s poppiest ditties.
The show wasn’t strictly Garcia-by-the-numbers, however. There were breaks structured into the two-set show where the orchestra laid back and gave the rock musicians room to improvise, such as a scorchingly powerful solo by Seals on “Cats Under the Stars” and a jaw-dropping tete-a-tete between Hamilton and Lesh, the son of Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh, on a stunning “Scarlet Begonias.” However, due to the constraints of this format, these jam sections felt like they were never fully given the room to grow and develop that would have otherwise been afforded in a more loosely-structured show.
But, when everything came together – as on an impassioned “Morning Dew” that was a show-stopper for Hamilton, a bopping take on Irving Berlin’s “Russian Lullaby” that was a showcase for Moore’s vocal power and a transcendent, all-hands-on-deck execution of the masterful “Terrapin Station” suite – the experience was simply incomparable.
New Jersey will see plenty from many of these players in the coming weeks and months, each carrying on Garcia’s musical legacy in their own way. Seals and JGB, who only recently stunned at the Tropicana in Atlantic City, return to the Stone Pony in Asbury Park on Oct. 25. Hamilton and Joe Russo’s Almost Dead will take a bow at the State Theatre in New Brunswick on Nov. 12. And, for anyone who feels like crossing state lines into Pennsylvania, Lesh and Midnight North will be joined by Hamilton for a free show in Spruce Street Harbor Park in Philadelphia on Sept. 19.
After all, “the wheel is turning,” as Garcia sang, “you can’t slow down.”
Jerry Gracia Symphonic Celebration Setlist (via Setlist.fm)
Set 1:
Dark Star (Grateful Dead cover)
Shakedown Street (Grateful Dead cover)
Rubin and Cherise (Jerry Garcia Band cover)
Bird Song (Jerry Garcia cover)
Cats Under the Stars (Jerry Garcia Band cover)
Crazy Fingers (Grateful Dead cover)
Russian Lullaby (Irving Berlin cover)
Scarlet Begonias (Grateful Dead cover)
Deal (Jerry Garcia cover)
Set 2:
Touch of Grey (Grateful Dead cover)
The Wheel (Jerry Garcia cover)
West L.A. Fadeaway (Grateful Dead cover)
China Cat Sunflower (Grateful Dead cover)
Morning Dew (Bonnie Dobson cover)
Run for the Roses (Jerry Garcia cover)
Terrapin Station (Grateful Dead cover)
Ripple (Grateful Dead cover)
Encore:
That’s What Love Will Make You Do (Little Milton cover)
Don’t Let Go (Roy Hamilton cover)
Lay Down Sally (Eric Clapton cover)
