To say that Kitchen Dwellers‘ return to Asheville, NC, on Halloween was “long-awaited” would be a lazy oversimplification. Last year, the Montana galaxy-grass quartet was poised to play a New Year’s run at Salvage Station, set to be the beloved local venue’s last-ever shows before closing in 2026 to make way for a highway expansion.

But, much like all life throughout Western North Carolina, those plans were put off indefinitely in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. Salvage Station, formerly located along the banks of the French Broad River, was devastated beyond repair—especially for a venue that was closing two months later anyway. Kitchen Dwellers moved their run to Wilmington, NC, and Asheville rebuilt.

Fast forward 13 months, and—while Asheville is open for tourism once again—many parts of Western North Carolina are still rebuilding. The riverside lot where Salvage Station once stood is now vacant. But, in a small comfort for a region with far greater concerns, we finally got a Kitchen Dwellers holiday run in Asheville this past weekend.

Looking back, Halloween felt like a much more appropriate holiday to spend with Kitchen Dwellers than the New Year’s ball drop. The band is unabashedly creepy, whether you’re listening to songs about ghosts in bottles and burning covered bridges, or looking at the possessed web of dreadlocks hollering from the stage in a Misfits shirt (I assure you, these are all compliments). Even instrumental “The Living Dread” can conjure mental pictures of dancing skeletons from classic cartoons (rather than of the Grateful Dead persuasion).

So it was fitting then that banjoist/vocalist Torrin Daniels should take The Orange Peel stage as a skeleton, complete with black and white makeup. At the conclusion of the band’s unplugged pre-show VIP set from the middle of the then-sparsely filled club, Daniels quipped at 7 p.m. that the band had to run and change into its costumes. Seeing guitarist Max Davies covered in green paint as the Wicked Witch of the West, mandolinist Shawn Swain ashen white as a ghost in a full suit with top hat, and bassist Joe Funk as a headless torso (his upright bass adorned with a Jack-O-Lantern face), I realized Daniels was not joking two and a quarter hours ago.

Kitchen Dwellers — “Eli Renfro” (Del McCoury) — 10/31/25 — VIP Acoustic Pre-Show

Halloween concerts mean covers and lots of them, and that’s a department where Kitchen Dwellers have never struggled. For recent proof, look to the band’s four-night September campout at Livingston, MT’s Pine Creek Lodge, with themed sets for the Gold Rush (David Bowie’s “Golden Years”, Osborne Brothers’ “Big Spike Hammer”, Marshall Tucker Band’s “Fire on the Mountain”), Madam’s Night (Shania Twain’s “Man! Feel Like A Woman”, Sierra Ferrell’s “Fox Hunt”, Hole’s “Celebrity Skin”), and ’90s country (“Chattahoochee”, “Seminole Wind”, “Cheeseburger in Paradise”).

Local openers Fireside Collective set the bar high for covers, taking the stage in firemen outfits fit for a risqué calendar and playing a set of all “fire” songs. The band’s bluegrass interpretation of Blue Öyster Cult‘s “Burnin’ For You” (a.k.a. Bluegrass Öyster Cult) was the evening’s high-water mark for a fun, unique, and on-assignment cover. The phrase “barn burner” gets thrown around a lot these days, but I believe it applies here.

Fireside Collective — “Burnin’ For You” (Blue Öyster Cult) — 10/31/25

[Video: LawsonFilms]

The Wicked Max of the West, dreadlock skeleton, headless Joe, and the dapper ghost took the stage around a single mic, beginning the set with the theme to the fiction horror podcast, Old Gods of Appalachia, “The Land Unknown”. Dwellers would parse out the theme to start each set and the encore, but the first widely recognized cover came with a jubilant jaunt through Blind Melon‘s serial killer instruction manual, “Skinned”, complete with kazoo.

Daniels could not refrain from interjecting the silence between songs with puns about the band’s costumes. After telling the crowd to keep an eye on Davies because he was gonna be on fire this next song, the band debuted Queens of the Stone Age‘s “Burn the Witch”. Kitchen Dwellers even have the power to transform songs you think you hate, like set two’s homage to Godsmack with “Voodoo”, which took this reporter from shuddering with childhood memories of FM butt-rock to discreetly singing along in a matter of minutes.

Following the band’s debut of new original “Robert Price”, Daniels explained—as the band still jammed distantly in the background—that one of the reasons they love Asheville and Appalachia is “our shared affinity for trains,” before Kitchen Dwellers’ first performance of Bad Livers‘ “Ghost Train”. The second Bad Livers cover of the night, following an explosive first set “Pretty Daughter”, “Ghost Train” was the most natural cover of the evening, falling in the sweet middle of the Venn diagram between relevant Halloween covers and progressive bluegrass. Likewise, the evening’s Fireside-assisted finale of Claude Ely‘s American folk standard “Ain’t No Grave” felt like it could’ve appeared in a Kitchen Dwellers setlist on any given night.

While covers are a fundamental part of the jam band Halloween spectacle, all too often, an October 31st show can get bogged down by a theme. The fluid playing that makes this niche subgenre so addicting is stunted by adherence to following a rigid story from a film series or the time constraints of using an entire set to cover a full album. By not committing to a strict storyline, but rather donning disparate costumes and doling out some choice covers, Kitchen Dwellers elevated their Asheville extravaganza beyond simply a cover-centric Halloween show.

After opening covers of “The Land Unknown”, “Skinned”, and “Burn the Witch”, plus originals “Sundown” and “Phaedrus”, Dwellers called up local fiddler James Schlender. While the show up to that point had some uneven energy, with the fluctuation between new covers and old originals, when Schlender the Lumberjack joined, everything seemed to smooth out. In fact, the rest of the set continued uninterrupted after Schlender’s addition, with a run of “Woods Lake” into a sandwich of “The Crown” jamming straight into “Pretty Daughter” and back into “The Crown”.

It was these tangled weaves of interlocking jams that proved to be the true pageantry of the evening beyond the costumes and covers. On “Woods Lake”, the rush of strings, distorted guitar, and gruff vocals coalesced for the best the Dwellers have to offer, while “The Crown” opened into a weightless instrumental free fall, ultimately building into a foot-stomping jam that reverberated the wood floor of the former roller rink. Maintaining the momentum, Torrin spitting out the sinister lyrics as a skeleton may have been the scariest thing I saw all night, before headless Joe brought it all back around to “The Crown”, altering the lyrics to “You cut me out like a knife, and now I’ve got no head,” to end the set.

Kitchen Dwellers — “The Crown” -> “Pretty Daughter” (Bad Livers) -> “The Crown” — 10/31/25

[Video: LawsonFilms]

In set two, Kitchen Dwellers went even bigger on the cohesive jam sandwich. Midway through the frame, after a haunting pairing of folk classic “Long Black Veil” and Seven Devils‘ “Wind Bitten”, the band poured up a “Ghost in the Bottle” that would encompass the rest of the set. After spending half the show with Schlender, they sent the fiddler off and handled things themselves—a classic funky vamp formulating around Funk’s bass in the “Bottle” breakdown.

Before long, though, the band gathered locomotive energy that led to bluegrass traditional “Reuben’s Train”, made into something of a “ghost train” by spectral Shawn Swain’s mandolin runs. The band’s conjuring of spirits turned more serious with a transition to Yonder Mountain String Band‘s “Follow Me Down to the Riverside”, a tribute to the late Jeff Austin, who has long been a guiding inspiration for Kitchen Dwellers.

All of these themes of “Ghost in the Bottle”, “Reuben’s Train”, and “Riverside” intertwined like the entanglement of strings, weaving in and out of one song to the next with tradgrass precision and smashgrass brute force, somehow finding their way back through the mist to “Reuben’s” and finally “Ghost in the Bottle” for a stupefying close to the show.

Kitchen Dwellers — “Reuben’s Train” (Traditional) -> “Follow Me Down To The Riverside” (Yonder Mountain String Band) -> “Reuben’s Train” — 10/31/25

[Video: LawsonFilms]

While the covers of Blind Melon, QOTSA, Godsmack, and “Long Black Veil” were fun, what made this show memorable, independent of Halloween, was the intricate quilt of jams the band weaved throughout the latter half of each set. With eyes closed, or listening back to audio on nugs, Kitchen Dwellers’ Halloween show in Asheville can stand on its own, regardless of what the date was.

Check out some videos from Kitchen Dwellers’ Halloween show in Asheville from LawsonFilms and photos by Stewart Ray. The band’s tour continues this week with stops in Richmond, VA; Harrisburg, PA; Philadelphia; NYC; and Cohoes, NY. Find tickets and tour dates here or on the band’s website.

Kitchen Dwellers — “Burn The Witch” (Queens Of The Stone Age) — 10/31/25

Kitchen Dwellers, Fireside Collective, James Schlender — “Ain’t No Grave” (Claud Ely) — 10/31/25

Setlist: Kitchen Dwellers | The Orange Peel | Asheville, NC | 10/31/25

Set One: The Land Unknown (Opening) (Landon Blood) [1], Sundown, Skinned (Blind Melon) [2] > Phaedrus [3], Burn the Witch (Queens of the Stone Age) [2], Woods Lake [4] > The Crown [4] [5] -> Pretty Daughter (Bad Livers) [4] [6] [7] -> The Crown [4]
Set Two: The Land Unknown (Hollow Heart) (Landon Blood) [1], Voodoo (Godmsack) [2] [4], Shadows [4] > Robert Price [4] [8] -> Ghost Train (Bad Livers) [2] [4], Long Black Veil (Danny Dill, Marijohn Wilkin) [4] > Wind Bitten [4], Ghost in the Bottle [9] -> Rueben’s Train (Traditional) [6] -> Follow Me Down to the Riverside (Yonder Mountain String Band) -> Reuben’s Train -> Ghost in the Bottle
Encore: The Land Unknown (Refrain) (Landon Blood) [1], Ain’t No Grave (Claud Ely) [2] [4] [10]

[1] Debut. Theme song to Old Gods of Appalachia podcast.
[2] Debut
[3] “Phaegrass” arrangement
[4] w/ James Schlender on fiddle
[5] lyric change “You cut me out like a knife, and now I’ve got no head.”
[6] “This is Halloween” (Danny Elfman) jam
[7] “How We Do” (Pretty Lights) teases
[8] Debut, original
[9] “Sandstorm” (Darude) teases
[10] w/ Fireside Collective’s Jesse Iaquinto (mandolin) & Joe Cicero (acoustic guitar)