Drums and Space Delivers the Entire Grateful Dead Experience With Monthly Events

"What a long, strange trip it's been." That's one of the most recognizable Grateful Dead lyrics, but it also perfectly encapsulates the life of Eric West and the way he and his friends created their local Dead tribute band Drums and Space, whose concerts have expanded into a full-on Shakedown Street experience, with grilled-cheese food trucks, vendors, flow artists, face painters and drum circles galore. 

West has a particular phrase he likes to employ for those who aren't afraid to take a chance, go on adventures or reach for the stars: He simply calls it "showing up." That's the type of Eckhart Tolle-speak you hear a lot in hippie communities, to which West is no stranger. He remembers when he first saw the Dead at the Shoreline Amphitheater outside San Fran; how could he not? It was a moment that changed his life forever and led to a whirlwind of adventures — now including Drums and Space — and all he had to do was "show up."

"I noticed Bob Weir when the Dead played a song called 'Estimated Prophet.' I bought my first guitar about a week after the show, and have been focused solely on playing Bob Weir in bands ever since," he recalls. "The Grateful Dead in the late ’80s and ’90s was basically college for me." But he did receive a traditional degree — in business communications from Cal State — and "as soon as I graduated, I wanted to work abroad," West says. "I ended up moving to Japan for about five years," from 1995 to 2000.

And even in Japan, Deadheads find each other. "You just can't make it up," he muses with a laugh. "So I was in Japan for, I don't know, like three weeks. I was a teacher there, and one of my students — I must have mentioned the Grateful Dead — said that there's a Grateful Dead club in Tokyo. There was only one in a city of 36 million people, and it was called Yukotopia.

"Yukotopia was owned by a Japanese woman named Yuko who came to the States, stumbled across the Grateful Dead, went back to Japan and opened up this club — which still exists, by the way," he continues. "And so I went to see a Grateful Dead band, all Japanese, in this place."

It wasn't long before West joined the band himself, taking over the Weir role. "They thought that was totally cool because I actually understood what these lyrics meant," he recalls. "I ended up playing with them for many, many years."
But he'd be swept up once again by a new opportunity. His friend, who worked on boats, invited West to join him in the yachting business. West worked his way up, and within three years, he became a captain. He was in the business for about thirteen years, captaining a family's yacht for nine of those.

"There was lots of travel all over the world, so lots of adventures, but of course, right at sea level," West notes. He was craving some higher-altitude expeditions, so he journeyed to Nepal in 2011. "I went to Mount Everest, and I met a Dutch climbing guide who's now my wife," he says.

While she was living in the Netherlands and he was based out of Miami — or just out at sea — the two stayed connected, eventually marrying and moving to Denver together in 2014. In the Mile High, West found his fellow Deadheads. "When we moved here, I immediately started poking around," he says, effortlessly folding in a reference to "Shakedown Street."

He posted an ad on Craigslist stating his interest in forming a Grateful Dead tribute band. "It was kind of funny looking back, because it was kind of a strict ad for a Grateful Dead band," he says. "I want the musicianship high, and I don't want a garage band where some buddies get together and have a party and play a little music."

West played in that group for a few years, but it eventually fizzled out. In 2020, he reached out to the keyboardist, Jay Rowe, and asked if he'd want to play together again, but in a bigger project. "I said, 'I have this idea; it's called Drums and Space...and if you're in, I'll push this thing forward,'" he recalls. "He said, 'I'm in.'"

West then scooped up bassist Bob Arnold after hearing him busking some Dead songs at an outlet mall; the rest of the members — drummer Chris Rose, percussionist Scott Headley, lead guitarist/vocalist Travis Daudert and lighting engineer Travis Lamb — fell into place not long after, and Drums and Space officially formed two years ago.
"For me, it's almost like, how big can we make this?" West says of the band. "It's not about us, it's more about how big can we make these events to re-create something really cool, for either the people who are just learning about jam bands and coming into the scene, or those people who were seeing the Dead in the ’70s, ’80s or ’90s.

"It's kind of cool driving home from a show thinking, 'Hey, we may have sort of brought some of that back for some of these Deadheads,'" West continues.  "And if we can do it for 100, what about 300? And what about 600? It's almost daring ourselves to be on the right side of fear when it comes to just going for it. And so far, so good."

The band has certainly expanded its offerings, and with that, its fan base. While Drums and Space is hardly the only Dead tribute band, it could be the one working the hardest to bring the Shakedown Street lot scene to life at venues such as Herman's Hideaway, where the next Drums and Space event will be this weekend on Saturday, March 16. The band normally has its events outdoors, but its first 2024 event is being cautious about the weather.

Just like the Dead, Drums and Space — named after Dead drummers Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart's dual jam — is all about the spirit of "showing up." And when the band shows up, it brings with it an extra-sensory experience — again, just like the Dead. "We often refer to it as the circus," West laughs. "Kind of like the jam-band circus coming to town."

That "circus" includes vendors selling their creations, grilled-cheese food trucks, face painters, flow artists and a drum circle, courtesy of the Djembe Orchestras of Colorado. West had already made a Facebook post about bringing drum circles to kick off the Drums and Space show when the Djembe Orchestras reached out. "Complete coincidence: The guy who basically runs that has been a Deadhead since the ’70s," West says.

"They come out and perform, let's say three songs that are Grateful Dead, and it's all drumming and singing. And they'd invite so many people that have so many members, so...now there's an open drum circle, where there might be forty or fifty drummers," West explains. "They're creating the ambience, so instead of house music between bands, there'll be a huge drum circle going on." He notes that "there's a difference between an open drum circle versus this more organized Djembe Orchestras of Colorado, which is actually going to perform some stuff that they have rehearsed in the form of these Grateful Dead songs."

Like the drum circle, he says, attendance numbers have only expanded. And as those numbers grow, so will the offerings; West hopes to bring in some fire spinners for summer performances. "We're not out there to take over the world, but probably a dozen shows a year," West says, noting that the band will be off from November through January. "A couple times a month is what it will look like this year."

Drums and Space provides more of a cultural event than an ordinary concert, celebrating and uplifting the same type of community the Grateful Dead pulled together. West and his bandmates are proud of the work they've done, and it all stems from the ethos surrounding West's own surreal adventures that he describes in his book, titled (of course) Showing Up, which he published in 2015. He says people are always asking him how he was able to accomplish so many travel adventures, the kind you read about in Rudyard Kipling stories.

"The short answer is you just showed up, right?" West says. "You took a chance on yourself. And nothing takes the place of your presence."

Drums and Space, 8 p.m. Saturday, March 16, Herman's Hideaway, 1578 South Broadway. Tickets start at $15.