Grateful Shred has been on quite the ride over the past several years, since a video of the Los Angeles-based band playing in the Hollywood Bowl parking lot got them a lot of well-deserved attention. The group, anchored by singer/guitarist Austin McCutchen and bassist Dan Horne, and featuring keyboardist Adam MacDougall, guitarist John Lee Shannon, and vocalist Mikaela Davis, has been steadily growing in popularity for its loose, harmony-driven Grateful Dead and Grateful Dead-adjacent covers.
MacDougall and Horne are founding members of Circles Around the Sun, and Shannon became that group’s guitarist after the 2019 passing of Neal Casal. Davis often collaborates with Circles Around the Sun and, as a harpist, leads her own national touring band, Southern Star. Grateful Shred released their first studio album, Might As Well, in June of 2025. It features tracks performed by the Grateful Dead and the Jerry Garcia Band that never appeared on those artists’ studio albums. This winter, Grateful Shred hit the road, bringing along drummers Corey Rose (Color Green) and Chris English. The band wrapped up their winter tour with a spirited, sold-out show at Portland, Oregon’s Revolution Hall on Saturday, February 7th.
Coming out of the gate with the appropriate “One More Saturday Night,” the relatively short first set included Johnny Cash’s “Big River” and Little Feat’s “Easy to Slip” before wrapping up with “Passenger” and Memphis Jug Band cover “On the Road Again.” Most of the night featured songs that the late Bob Weir would typically sing lead on – a fitting tribute to the Grateful Dead co-founder.
The Bobby thematics continued as the second set opened with a couple of Kingfish covers, “Lazy Lightning” and “Supplication,” before taking on J.J. Cale’s “After Midnight.” Cheers went up with the opening of “Dark Star,” and it went pretty deep with Marty Robbins’ “El Paso” sandwiched in the middle. “New Speedway Boogie” also featured an extended jam before a drums segment, which was augmented by two jugglers from Portland’s Circus Luminescence. The set finished with some sing-along hits, including “I Need A Miracle,” “China Cat Sunflower,” and “I Know You Rider.” After thanking the crowd, Grateful Shred brought everyone together for a run through “My Sisters and Brothers,” before putting an exclamation point on the evening with the one-two punch of “Sugar Magnolia” and “Sunshine Daydream.”
There certainly is no shortage of Grateful Dead cover bands performing today, especially on the West Coast. Their latest Portland performance offered a glimpse into why Grateful Shred has gone from parking-lot jams to an in-demand touring act.
Grateful Shred, Revolution Hall, Portland, Oregon, 2026-2-7
Set 1: One More Saturday Night, Beat It on Down The Line, They Love Each Other, Big River, It Must Have Been the Roses, Easy to Slip, Passenger, On the Road Again
Set 2: Lazy Lightning, Supplication, After Midnight, Dark Star > El Paso > Dark Star, New Speedway Boogie, Drums w/jugglers > I Need A Miracle, China Cat Sunflower, I Know You Rider
Encore: My Sisters and Brothers, Sugar Magnolia, Sunshine Daydream
