Music on Main: Garcia Birthday Band

Garcia Birthday Band, based in Portland Oregon, isn’t your mother’s Grateful Dead cover band. Playing for over 20 years, GBB has evolved into something far deeper than the sum of its parts. The beating heart of the Pacific Northwest’s GD community, the band’s ever-expanding fanbase is an experience unto themselves. Using the Dead’s repertoire as a springboard for limitless potential and improvisation, Garcia Birthday Band are a cornerstone of the modern Grateful Dead universe, and their fans have come to expect the unexpected as the norm. 

Placing no boundaries on eras of the Dead’s career or catalog, and drawing on decades of individual and shared experience, GBB play the music through an auditory kaleidoscope. Composed of some of the most ace players of the Oregon live music community, the band makes every show an act of exploration, both musically and spiritually. United hearts and minds blur the line between the stage and crowd – a carnival of human potential. If you’re new to Garcia Birthday Band, their doors are always open, and you’ll recognize it as something familiar when you first walk in: home.

You may recognize the fellas in GBB from acts such as Nine Days Wonder, Cubensis, Shafty, Turkey Bouillon Mafia, The Campfire Boys, Deadhenge, Shadow of Sound, The Buds of May, The Ike Willis Band, Dead Sessions, and Dark Matter Transfer.