Hippies, Deadheads and other assorted music lovers from across Iowa and the Midwest will converge on Des Moines’ Val Air Ballroom on Friday for an evening of grooves, jamming and dancing in the spirit of the Grateful Dead.

The music will be provided by The Dark Star Orchestra, a band that bills itself as a Grateful Dead tribute band. But DSO is not just your run-of-the-mill cover band.

Instead of randomly playing old Dead favorites in between other tunes, DSO recreates entire shows by playing, song-for-song, sets once performed by the Grateful Dead.

Concert-goers may find themselves transported back to Winterland in the ’70s or perhaps the Shoreline Amphitheatre somewhere in the ’80s. The band encourages people to shout out guesses as to the date of the show in question and at the end of the concert the date and location of the original Grateful Dead show are announced. (But please, no wagering, reminds the band.)

Also like the Grateful Dead, and other jam-based rock groups such as Phish and Widespread Panic, Dark Star Orchestra allows amateur tapers to record the concerts and distribute them freely among the ever-growing jam-band music trading community.

In most cases the band plays in the same style as the Dead’s in the era that they are covering. In some cases, DSO uses the same models of amps, keyboards, and drum sets to make the night even more “authentic.”

But DSO does not aspire to replace the music or the scene created by the Grateful Dead. Instead they strive to share the music that fueled one of the longest-touring bands in history with audiences that would otherwise not be able to appreciate it.

While there is, was, and never will be anything like a Grateful Dead concert, Dark Star Orchestra provides a musical outlet for fans who “got on the bus” too late to see the Dead play live before Jerry Garcia’s untimely passing.

They might be able to satisfy that much-needed musical fix in the lull before Phish announces its next tour and the Other Ones (the recent regrouping of surviving Grateful Dead members) make its way to Chicago in December.

If nothing else, Dark Star Orchestra will provide an evening of electrifying tunes and straight-up jamming while fans of all ages and walks of life sway, twirl, and groove to the music that hasn’t stopped in more than thirty years.

Life of the Dead

1965 – First formed as The Warlocks, the band changes its name when Garcia opens a dictionary and sees an entry for “grateful dead.”

1969 – The Dead give a practically-forgotten performance in a torrential downpour at the Woodstock Music Festival.

1972 – The Grateful Dead undertake an extensive European tour. The live album that followed, “Europe ’72,” is regarded by many to have captured the band’s unique sound better than any other in their library.

1973 – Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, the original frontman and keyboard player, dies from liver complications stemming from years of heavy drinking.

1978 – The Dead perform an historic run of shows in Egypt. They perform on a stage in front of the Great Sphynx while colored lights shine on the Great Pyramids in the background.

1986 – Jerry Garcia falls into a diabetic coma. Although he fully recovers, it is an early indication that his health is in a questionable state.

1990 – Keyboard player Brent Mydland dies of a drug overdose in his home.

1995 – On July 9, The Grateful Dead take the stage for the final time at Soldier Field in Chicago.

1995 – On August 9, Jerry Garcia dies in his sleep at a drug treatment center in the San Francisco area.

1997 – Dark Star Orchestra is founded. Its mission is to recreate entire Grateful Dead sets from the huge volume of shows that the Dead played.

2002 – “The Other Ones,” a band comprised of the remaining Grateful Dead members, hold a reunion concert at Alpine Valley Music Center. This is the first time everybody has played together in public since 1995.

– Compiled by Jay Maxwell