Photo by Molly McCormick
Audio By Carbonatix
By the time Pickin’ on the Dead rolls into Cervantes’ Other Side on Saturday, February 21, the project will be at a crossroads that feels more like a pivot and less like a return. Or, as guitarist Tyler Grant puts it, “More like becoming than evolving.”
Pickin’ on the Dead initially evolved out of WinterWondergrass in 2014, when Tyler Grant decided to assemble bluegrass musicians across the genre to honor one of the most extensive music catalogs ever written. “WinterWondergrass Tahoe the following year, the tent was packed,” he recalls. “Jambase reviewed the festival and we got number two out of the top ten. I thought, ‘Wow.. okay. This is something, and people like it.'”
The concept has always been simple, in the best way: Take the Grateful Dead songbook and hand it to elite bluegrass musicians, then let the jams decide what happens next. The trick, Grant says, is honoring the past without turning it into a museum piece. “Give nods to the authentic parts which still really bring a lot of positive reactions from fans who understand the music,” he explains, “but also to just see what these phenomenal bluegrass players are going to do when they hear the songs.”
That balance is what’s pushed Pickin’ on the Dead into what Grant calls its “next phase”; in 2025, Pickin’ on the Dead started scheduling more shows outside of WinterWondergrass. “We’re really starting to sell a lot of tickets to these shows. Things are catching on,” he says.
The band has leaned into this momentum by inviting collaborators into the fold, turning recent concerts into something closer to a reunion of friends than a traditional tour stop. “On the shows we’ve been doing recently, we’ve been actively bringing in special guests,” Grant notes.
Those guest spots haven’t been ornamental: They’ve shaped the way the music breathes onstage. Grant points to a January 3 performance at the Fox Theatre, where banjoist Billy Failing and members of Tonewood joined the set. “I produced Tonewood’s album, so I’m a bit of a mentor to them,” he says. “It was a circle of mentorship and inspiration and all of us looking up to each other at the same time.” The night became a microcosm of what Pickin’ on the Dead wants to be: not just a band, but a space where players can collaborate and perform.
Photo by Molly McCormick
“He’s someone who’s really showing up in his local scene in a very community-minded way,” Grant says of Failing.
That idea of community isn’t branding language; it’s the band’s operating fuel. “The spirit of it was community-driven and coming together in a very supportive way,” Grant notes. “Musically, that’s the way the evening progressed. We were all listening to one another. Nobody was really overplaying. It was that wonderful give and take which is inherent to the spirit of that music.”
That spirit becomes especially powerful in moments when the outside world presses in, as it did at a January 29 show at the Aggie Theatre. “We were all feeling the stress and strain of the times,” Grant says, citing the weight of recent political events and losses in the Grateful Dead realm. “It felt like a revival meeting. Where the band is blowing the roof off of the place and everyone is screaming and crying, letting it all out.”
What happened next felt communal in the most literal sense: “It was a release of energy that everyone needed collectively between the crowd and the band.”
The upcoming Denver show carries an added layer of meaning, one that intentionally reconnects with the group’s origins. “We can bring it back to that spirit on which the group was founded at Winter Wondergrass,” Grant says, noting that the date includes a reunion with one of the project’s earliest collaborators: Bridget Law.
“She was among the first players to pick on the Dead with us,” Grant says. “We have performed together many times through the years.” Law’s résumé extends well beyond this project, including work with Elephant Revival and her long-standing presence at WinterWonderGrass, but Grant describes her as the band’s most consistent creative partner. “Bridget just brings a certain grace and reacts to the jams in such a beautiful way,” he says.
For Grant, that doesn’t mean stripping things down to nostalgia; it means re-centering the project around shared history and collective listening. That’s an experience that will fill the Other Side with seasoned jams that have been crafted over years of collaborating on stage.
“I feel like for this show, we’re going to go back to the roots,” Grant says, emphasizing that the Denver date isn’t just another stop, but a chance to reset the emotional compass. Reconnecting with an artist like Law will help the group enter new territory within the jams that hasn’t yet been discovered.
If Pickin’ on the Dead’s recent shows have proven anything, it’s that these Grateful Dead renditions still have space to create within the jams. They’re still capable of absorbing grief, generating joy and creating moments where strangers look at each other and acknowledge that something just happened that can’t quite be explained.
On February 21, the project will continue not just as a tribute, not as a novelty, but as a living thing, still becoming.
Pickin’ on the Dead with Bridget Law of Elephant Revival, Saturday, February 21, Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom Other Side; tickets available on the Cervantes’ website.
