It’s late July, and the Terrapin Roadshow is back at the Forest Meadows Amphitheatre in San Rafael, California for the second straight summer. The scenic location is only about a mile away from the former Terrapin Crossroads, a club and restaurant that now lives in legend. “TXR”, as it became known in shorthand, was where influential bass wizard Phil Lesh held court during a decade-long run of magical sonic alchemy from 2012-2021. Lesh led countless shows that pushed the envelope on what’s possible for a musician aging through his 70s and into his 80s.
The restaurant also featured free bar band shows from ace local musicians seven nights a week, making it one of the most fan-friendly venues in music history. It’s hard to describe what a special place in time and space it was, before the venue’s untimely demise at the end of 2021 when Lesh wanted to retire but couldn’t find the right buyer to keep TXR going. The music didn’t really stop, though, as Phil Lesh & Friends continued to play at other Bay Area venues, usually with son Grahame Lesh as one of the guitarists in the band.
When the elder Lesh passed on to the other side in October of 2024 at age 84, grief and doubt crept in. Phil Lesh wasn’t just an influential musician; he was a counterculture trailblazer who helped forge a movement in the 1960s that raised the bar on what was possible in live music. “Well, it’s kind of the last great American adventure, you know what I mean? Human beings need a little danger, a little uncertainty, a little adventure in their lives and our society frowns upon that,” Phil once mused regarding the Grateful Dead experience.
Yet Grahame Lesh has stepped up boldly to continue leading the Terrapin Family Band, as well as shows as Grahame Lesh & Friends. The now 39-year-old guitarist has seized the torch to keep the music going toward what Phil’s bandmate Bobby Weir envisioned as a 300-year project, before his passing in January at age 78. The Terrapin Roadshow has expanded in 2026, with California shows followed by additional dates in Oregon and Colorado.
Here in San Rafael, it’s the Terrapin Family Band with Ross James on bass, Alex Koford on drums and Jason Crosby on keyboards, each of whom played countless shows with Phil & Grahame at Terrapin Crossroads. The weekend’s Friday night opener here on the 24th of July is preceded, however, by an impromptu free show from Alex Koford & Friends at the Fillmore in San Francisco on Thursday night. Announced just days earlier, the show sponsored by Rhino Records and Dogfish Head Brewery is billed to honor the recent archival release of an early Dead show at the legendary venue way back in July of 1966.
Tracks from the 60-year-old show play on the PA with psychedelic lighting as fans arrive. The band includes Koford on guitar rather than drums, with Ross James on bass, Garrett Deloian from Jerry’s Middle Finger on lead guitar, and “Terrapin Allstars” Danny Luehring and Danny Eisenberg on drums and keyboards. The set includes vibrant performances of Bob Dylan’s “Queen Jane Approximately” and “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue”, along with choice 1960s-era Dead tunes like “St. Stephen” and “Morning Dew”. Koford handles most of the vocals, and it’s a treat to catch a show like this when the Fillmore is only half full, since it wasn’t widely advertised.
Friday, 24 July
Koford and James are fired up when they hit the stage with the Terrapin Family Band on Friday evening, launching the show in a big way with “Help on the Way”. The 1975 classic has long stood out as one of the Dead’s greatest compositions, from the dynamic sonic journey to visionary lyrics from Robert Hunter about the corporate greed that plagues society: “Tell me the cost, I can pay, let me go, tell me love is not lost, Sell everything, Without love day to day, insanity’s king.” The quartet is joined from the start by vocalist Nicki Bluhm and guitarist Barry Sless, two more “Terrapin Allstars” who played countless shows with the Leshes.
Lesh and Sless team on the intricate guitar lines, though Grahame has shown in recent years that he can be “the Jerry” and doesn’t necessarily need another guitarist (such as the Terrapin Family Band’s scintillating show at the Sweetwater Music Hall in nearby Mill Valley last December 19th, when Lesh, James, Koford and keyboardist Holly Bowling tore it up.) The band mix it up with a segue into the jubilant “Bertha” instead of the traditional “Slipknot”, with Bluhm starring on lead vocals.
The art banner above the stage captures the mission of the Terrapin Roadshow, a reproduction of the poster by artist Marc Spusta from the “Unbroken Chain” shows by Grahame Lesh & Friends at the Fillmore in March that honored the life and music of Phil Lesh. The image depicts several terrapin turtles flying past an ouroboros serpent eating its own tail, representing the cyclical nature of the Grateful Dead phenomenon from one generation to the next. It’s an art design concept that Phil Lesh himself formulated before he died.
Broken Compass Bluegrass, who opened the show with a solid set that featured their own jamgrass versions of “Cassidy” and “Jack Straw”, return toward the end of the set for a full-on jam session. There are ten people on stage now for “Dire Wolf” with sweet pedal steel guitar from Sless, a gorgeous “Friend of the Devil” with hot mandolin and fiddle solos from Kyle Ledson and Mei Lin Heirendt, and a rowdy “Cumberland Blues” to close out the first set.
The Terrapin Family Band shift gears for the second set as Reed Mathis joins in on guitar. Widely known as a virtuoso bassist, Mathis dug deeper into guitar during the COVID-19 pandemic and has been an impressive man about town in recent years on both instruments. He takes the lead vocal on “Black Throated Wind”, before “Pride of Cucamonga” leads to the psychedelic deep end of “Dark Star”. Mathis, Koford, and Bluhm each take a verse to conjure some true Terrapin family vibes. Darkness falls, and the light show heightens the vibe of the jazzy, mystical explorations, as with the psychedelic rock power of “The Other One”.
A fiery jam leads back to the end of “Dark Star” before giving way to “Morning Dew”, featuring a shining star performance from Nicki Bluhm as she belts out the anti-nuke classic with a mesmerizing power that could lead one to wonder why she isn’t a bigger rock star. It feels like a holy sermon at the Church of Saint Jerome, with Bluhm as a high priestess who has an urgent message to impart. The guitars ramp up the riffage on the climactic conclusion, followed by a thematic turn to the majestic “Weather Report Suite”. Sless shines on glistening pedal steel as Mathis takes the lead vocal backed by Bluhm and Lesh. It’s a sparkling rendition with the wind blowing across the audience just as Mathis sings “Now what remains? The wind and rain”.
The shift into the up-tempo “Let It Grow” soars as the Terrapin Family Band gels on the timeless tune about the forces of nature. Mathis dazzles on lead guitar over dynamic action from the rhythm section of James and Koford, then electrifying jamming on the outro’s main riff. A rip-rocking “Sugar Magnolia” caps the set with extra sonic bells and whistles. Sless’ pedal steel elevates the melody to a higher dimension, as do the harmonies from Bluhm and Lesh. Crosby crushes a dazzling piano solo as everyone rocks out for an exhilarating finish.
Saturday, 25 July
Twenty-four hours later, the Terrapin Roadshow continues for night two. Local rockers San Geronimo open the show with a lineup that features more “Terrapin Allstars” with Brian Rashap on bass, Danny Luehring, Danny Eisenberg, and Garrett Deloian (who is said to be a last-minute substitute on lead guitar). Deloian stars again when he sits in with the Terrapin Family Band to help lead a high-level sequence of “Alligator”, “Cassidy”, and “Fire on the Mountain”. Nicki Bluhm stars again as she sings “Cassidy” in tandem with drummer Alex Koford, forming a dynamic duo on uniquely exquisite and blissful harmonies. Bluhm shines further still with her vibrant vocal on “Fire on the Mountain”, before a hot jam on the classic tune.
Grahame Lesh stars on the lead vocal for “Box of Rain”, generating a flashback to last year’s heartwarming guest performance with Dead & Company in Golden Gate Park. The guests keep coming as Brian Rashap, Tim Bluhm, and Greg Loiacono from the Mother Hips join in for a run through their 1998 song “Esmerelda” to close out the first set. “Tell me what is wrong / And I’ll put it in a song / And I’ll play it on stage,” they sing, imparting the mission of rock ‘n’ rollers throughout the decades. The Mother Hips have been stalwarts in the Bay Area music scene since the 1990s, so it’s fun to see them as part of the festivities here.
The PA plays Joe Cocker’s “Let’s Go Get Stoned” as the set break starts, highlighting the fan-friendly environment at the Terrapin Roadshow. Tim Bluhm and Greg Loiacono return to sit in for the entire second set, which becomes a big party as the group rocks out on classics like the “China Cat Sunflower / I Know You Rider” combo, the rare “Mason’s Children”, and perennial fan favorite “Scarlet Begonias”. Adding two more guitarists into the mix would be tricky for most bands, but all of these players are veterans of the scene who listen and feed off each other.
Grahame Lesh has also grown into a savvy band leader who knows how to orchestrate such an ensemble, after spending more than a decade inside the process while his dad led the Terrapin Family Band. When the group launches into “St. Stephen”, it doesn’t hit right away with quite the impact it typically did when fans would see Phil Lesh throwing down his bass bombs with a devious smile. Yet the energy builds, and once the song gets grooving, it feels like Phil’s spirit lives on in flowing jams like this one as the band rocks out while the audience gets down.
Nicki Bluhm elevates the sound again with her harmony vocals on “St. Stephen” and “Not Fade Away”, where the bluesy passion in her voice stands out. It’s fitting when she teams with Loiacono on “The Music Never Stopped” encore, a song that seems to capture the essence of the experience more and more as the years slide by. When she belts out, “There’s a band out on the highway, They’re high-steppin’ into town, They’re a rainbow full of sound, It’s fireworks, calliopes and clowns, Everybody’s dancing,” it captures how this music lives on in such vibrant fashion even after Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, and Bob Weir have passed on.
The original members left the template behind for how to create that “rainbow full of sound”, and the next generation has taken the torch. There’s another Sunday matinee to come for those who can make it, but “The Music Never Stopped” feels like a perfect encore to cap the night as the Terrapin Roadshow ramps up for the next leg of the sonic journey through time and space.