Grateful Shred brings a bone shaking Halloween performance to Williamsburg

By Jake Van Tassel

With such a long history of Halloween night shows, Halloween has always been a special night for Deadheads. Halloween celebrations like the ones held in Columbus Ohio in 1971 and Radio City NY in 1980 are fan favorites and repeat listens for many, making the energy brought on stage by Grateful Shred last night at Brooklyn Bowl Williamsburg all the more impressive to me. Walking on stage dressed in full Muppet costumes to the tune of the Muppets show theme song, Shred had me engaged in the performance the entire time.

Shows performed at Brooklyn Bowl locations have a very interesting feeling to them in atmosphere, having a decently large floor space in front of the stage for general admission and to the right of the stage a set of bowling lanes that can be rented. The venue provides a unique dichotomy of the dancing and partying of people who came solely for the music and others who are utilizing all the venue has to offer. Hearing the sudden crash of a bowling ball into a set of pins after a drum solo brings a quick reminder of the others in the venue but also brings a lot of charm within the same moment. Looking around the venue and seeing everybody regardless of what they’re doing still swaying and enjoying the music was an appropriate feeling for such a welcoming crowd of people.

This was my first time getting to see Grateful Shred, a line-up comprised of Austin McCutchen on vocals/guitar, John Lee Shanon on guitar, Dan Horne on vocals/bass, Austin Beede on drums, Alex Koford on vocals/drums, Adam Macdougall on vocals/keyboard, and Mikaela Davis on vocals. Every member of this lineup brought great energy and emotion through their playing and crowd interactions, extra shout out to Mikaela because in my opinion any Dead cover group worth their salt has someone for Donna’s vocals. Horne kept crowd interaction throughout the night with small quips and comments about costumes or jokes to band members which only compounded the personality presence the band had with their costumes.

Opening the show with a great and energetic rendition of “Promised Land” by Chuck Berry, Shred kept a high pace and quick energy setlist throughout the night only briefly slowing down for a very well performed “Ramble on Rose” and closing out the first set on a very funky one two punch combo of “West L.A. Fadeaway” and “Dancing in the Streets” which are both always appreciated favorites of mine, bringing the “Dancing in the Streets” to a very funk fueled long jam of an end to the first set. The second set of the night is when the show really kicked into high gear for me, opening the second set with fan favorite “Bertha” afterwards bringing the crowd into a quick country jam with Johnny Cash’s “Big River” and Bob Weir’s “Cassidy” before quickly launching us back into the groove with a fantastically funky “Shakedown Street” which admittedly got me very excited, who doesn’t love a good “Shakedown Street”? Shred then began to break down from Shakedown slowly but surely dropping instruments from the track until mostly the strings remained bringing us into an otherworldly “Space” jam until the drummers, now having undergone a costume change from Statler and Waldorf to the iconic muppets drummer animal for an appropriately animalistic and brutal “Drums” session. After the “Space/Drums” combo Shred busted out a Halloween essential with Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London”. Finally closing out the second set with a family favorite of mine, Kris Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee” before leaving the stage for a quick break and ending the show on an encore of “China Cat Sunflower>I Know You Rider” the classic combination that goes together like peas and carrots.

In a city filled with events and celebrations everyday and especially on Halloween night, there is nowhere I would have rather been to celebrate the festivities than attending Grateful Shred’s performance last night. The love and enthusiasm brought by the band for this music showed itself in every second of their performance and that enthusiasm was reflected onto an audience that kept up dancing throughout the entire night, from the old heads who were lucky enough to see the original Dead lineups to myself and the newer generation of Deadheads everybody was dancing in the bowling alley.