Shakedown Street’s May 1977 Tribute Run
Some anniversaries deserve more than a mention. On May 7, 8 and 9, 2027, Colorado’s longest-running Grateful Dead tribute band, Shakedown Street, takes over the Boulder Theater for three consecutive nights built around the most talked about run of shows in the band’s history. Each evening recreates the setlist from the matching night in 1977, which means Boston Garden on Friday, Barton Hall at Cornell on Saturday, and Buffalo Memorial Auditorium on Sunday, all played on the exact calendar dates the Grateful Dead played them half a century earlier.
Vocalist Alyssa Medina joins the band for all three nights, and the run lands in Shakedown Street’s own 40th anniversary year, a milestone that makes the timing feel earned instead of convenient. Doors open at 7:00 PM, music starts at 8:00 PM, and the shows are 21 and over.
The Run Everyone Argues About
Spend any time around Deadheads and the same debate surfaces. Which night was the best, and does the answer change depending on the day you ask? Some point straight to Cornell. Others champion Boston or Buffalo. The fact that three consecutive shows can each carry a legitimate claim to the top spot is exactly what makes this stretch of spring 1977 so revered. The band was playing with remarkable confidence, the arrangements were bright and tightly woven, and the jams moved with a purpose that tapers and listeners have been trading and studying ever since.
The wider world has caught up to what tape collectors always knew. In 2017, Rhino released May 1977: Get Shown the Light, an eleven disc box set that collected the Boston, Cornell and Buffalo performances along with the May 5 show in New Haven. It was nominated for a Grammy, debuted at number 33 on the Billboard 200, and earned a 9.0 from Pitchfork, whose reviewer called Cornell arguably the best ever and described these shows as the Dead at their most accessible. If you are looking for the place to start with this band, this is it.
What Each Night Will Recreate
Here is how the original performances unfolded, since these are the setlists Shakedown Street will be building each evening around.
Cornell carries the reputation, and for good reason. The second set runs from a joyful Scarlet Begonias into Fire on the Mountain and builds toward a St. Stephen that opens into a sixteen minute Not Fade Away before finding its way back and settling into Morning Dew. Buffalo makes its own strong case, opening with the Help on the Way, Slipknot!, Franklin’s Tower suite and later stretching through The Other One into Comes a Time. Boston, the first of the three, delivers a loaded first set and a second half where Eyes of the World rolls through Drums and The Wheel before landing in Wharf Rat.
Forty Years on Shakedown Street
Shakedown Street has been playing the Grateful Dead catalog in Colorado for more than three decades and is widely recognized as the state’s leading and longest-running tribute to the band. The current lineup features Peter Czolowski on rhythm guitar and vocals, Josh Rosen on lead guitar and vocals, Joe Weisiger on keyboards and vocals, Edwin Hurwitz on bass, and Joel Zeiner on drums and percussion. Their approach draws on the full range of what the Dead made possible, Americana, folk, blues, jazz, rock and open improvisation, and they have built a reputation for recreating entire shows rather than simply playing greatest hits.
They have done this kind of work before, performing complete recreations of individual Dead shows at the Boulder Theater across recent years. They even paired Boston and Cornell once before, in a pair of open air shows at Wibby Brewing in Longmont in 2021. The May 1977 run is the largest version of that idea yet, and with Alyssa Medina adding vocals on all three nights, it should sound as much like a celebration as a recreation.
If you want to hear the kind of music that keeps these tribute scenes thriving before the run arrives, tune in to The Music Plays The Band Radio Show on The Grateful Dead Live. The show plays live music by Grateful Dead cover bands and explores the important role those bands play in carrying the legacy forward, which makes it a natural companion to an anniversary built on a tribute act. It is open to listeners of all ages.
Fifty Years Later, Still Gathering
It is worth acknowledging what has changed since 1977. Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh and Keith Godchaux have all passed, and the music from those spring nights now lives in the recordings and in the people who keep playing it. That is part of what makes a three night tribute like this meaningful. Fans who were in the building at Barton Hall will stand next to people who were born decades after it, and everyone will be hearing the same songs in the same order on the same dates. The point is not to replace the originals. The point is to gather in a room, dance, and keep the music moving.
Plan Your Boulder Weekend
Single night tickets and three day passes are both on sale now through Z2 Entertainment and the Boulder Theater website. All three shows begin at 8:00 PM with doors at 7:00 PM, and the theater is located at 2032 14th Street in Boulder. With the dates falling on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the run works well as a full weekend trip, and anyone who wants to see all three recreations should look closely at the three day pass.
