Amid a great deal of (well deserved) hype and excitement for the Grateful Dead’s 50th Anniversary at Soldier Field in Chicago over 4th of July Weekend this summer, a new musical ensemble has formed. Meet Billy & The Kids.
Comprised of the Dead’s original drummer (and founding member) Bill Kreutzmann, guitarist Tom Hamilton (Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, Brothers Past), keyboardist Aron Magner (The Disco Biscuits) and bassist Reed Mathis (Tea Leaf Green), this talented quartet formed out of a performance at Lockn’ Music Festival in Virginia last September, entitled Bill Kreutzmann’s Locknstep All Stars.
While the inaugural show featured a setlist of exclusively Grateful Dead originals and older cover songs, the newly formed group’s next (and first official) show at Warren Haynes’ Christmas Jam in December also included songs by The Beatles, The Band, and Phish.
This Friday, Billy & The Kids will be playing in the New York City area for the first time, at the historic Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York. For this special show, the group will be performing songs from the Dead’s acclaimed tour known as “Europe 72,” which began and ended in London and passed through Copenhagen, Paris, and other European cities in May of 1972. The tour’s complete recordings were officially released for public sale in 2011, and Friday night will feature material from this catalogue of songs, dubbed “Europe Seventy 2.0.”
Once more, for this one unique show only, they’re bringing pedal steel guitarist Robert Randolph along for the ride.
The age gap between Kreutzmann and the other three ‘Kids’ in his group is fascinating. Kreutzmann helped start a band in the late 1960s which would become the pioneer of American improvisational rock n’ roll. The Grateful Dead toured heavily until the mid 1990s, the decade which saw Hamilton, Magner and Mathis emerge in the “jam” scene, one originally created and fostered by the Dead. Now, the backbone of the scene’s rhythm (Kreutzmann) is uniting with these younger, very talented musicians, delving deep into the archives of Americana.
One of these younger artists, Aron Magner, grew up listening to the Dead from an early age. “I saw my first Jerry Band show when I was 12,” he said. “There is such a bountiful amount of material within the Grateful Dead’s catalogue that it is perhaps unprecedented in the history of modern recorded music.”
The keyboardist continued, “When you put a collection of songs together, like there is in the Europe ’72 tour, you still have a plethora of amazing stalwarts – ‘Eyes Of The World,’ ‘Help-Slip,’ ‘Terrapin Station’ – those songs hadn’t even been germinated yet. It was Keith’s [Godchaux] first tour – and I know the Grateful Dead pretty well, but even I’m finding songs that I never knew existed, like ‘Two Souls In Communion,’ an incredible ballad.”
Magner is no stranger to playing the Dead’s music as of late. Last summer his electronic rock band, the Disco Biscuits, teamed up for several shows with Kreutzmann and the Grateful Dead’s second drummer, Mickey Hart. This same lineup is scheduled for a performance at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado on April 17th.
Additionally, guitarist Tom Hamilton has been actively touring as a member of Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, another modern interpretation of the Grateful Dead’s music which has been met with instant success.
Tickets and more information for Friday night’s Capitol Theatre show can be found here.