Since we rarely get reports from the field — and frankly, never get them from Ithaca, NY — I just had to post this quick one.

As I mentioned yesterday, in honor of the Grateful Dead’s much-hyped show at Barton Hall on 5/8/77, the Mayor of Ithaca made yesterday a holiday and the Dark Star Orchestra performed one of their patented re-creations of the famous concert in its entirety. As it turns out, Stanley T. Roper (Live Music Blog friend and frequent Phish Friday contributor), actually caught DSO’s performance last night at the State Theatre. Here’s his brief report…

DSO had a tall order in reproducing what’s widely considered to be one of the finest shows played by one of the greatest bands ever. They were up to the task. Hot, hot show. The crowd was electric, and there were several times (Dancin’, NFA) when I was certain that the balcony was about to collapse. People would’ve died happy.

Stan Roper, Ithaca, New York. Back to Whitperson in the studio. Whitperson?

Obviously, the hype surrounding this one show has gotten a bit out of control. I’m not sure what is more surreal (or amusing): that a Grateful Dead cover band can sell out theatres and create such a large buzz or that the Mayor of Ithaca created “Grateful Dead Day.”