Skip to content

A town square for an unsquare town

redbankgreen

Standing for the vitality of Red Bank, its community, and the fun we have together.

RED BANK: DEAD ON LIVE AT THE BASIE

brianstrattonberklee-5424485Multi-instrumentalist Marc Muller, at right above, leads Dead On Live at the Count Basie Saturday night. Steve Miller, below, takes the stage Tuesday. (Photo by Brian Stratton. Click to enlarge.)

The sonic legacy of the San Francisco Bay area casts its still-potent spell over the famous stage of Red Bank’s Count Basie Theatre Friday night, sound-tracked by as dead-on a recreation of the Grateful Dead as you’ll find anywhere between Raceway Park and the Pyramids.

Back for another edition of what’s become a Halloween-season staple at the Basie, the entity known as Dead On Live is spearheaded and skippered as always by Marc Muller — master multi-instrumentalist, sought-after session ace, adjunct professor at Monmouth University and ringmaster of a tie-dyed traveling circus that’s “deadicated” itself to detail-intensive tributes to the Grateful Dead’s body of officially released recordings.

Actually, “detail intensive” doesn’t begin to describe the methods of Muller and his Rolodex of talented friends, a social circle that’s included Shore-based headliner Nicole Atkins. In the hands of the professor and his flexibly floating lineup, the project involves comprehensive transcription, meticulous reproduction and a level of commitment that obsesses over “every Phil Lesh note, every drum, banjo or mandolin part… even the mistakes.”

It’s an approach that’s earned Muller and company considerable cred among Deadhead types. And, like the Dark Star Orchestra, the well-traveled ensemble that dedicates each of its gigs to a specific re-creation of a particular set from the Dead’s historical soundboard canon, Dead On Live personifies a mild psychosis of which the bandleader says, “I don’t know if ANYONE has done this to the extent that I have.”

For Saturday’s show, Dead On Live comes full-circle back to the music with which it made its Basie-based world premiere in October, 2010: a celebration of the 1970 album American Beauty. Like its predecessor Workingman’s Dead, it was a record that shifted the Dead’s focus away from psychedelia and toward an expansive American music that fused rock, bluegrass, blues, folk and (especially) country into an organic sound that would secure it a worldwide fanbase of unparalleled devotion. It also yielded at least five songs (“Truckin,” “Ripple,” “Friend of the Devil,” “Sugar Magnolia,” “Box of Rain”) that are regularly short-listed among the band’s most cherished signatures.

The 8 p.m. program also promises “plenty of good old Grateful jams, as well as music from some of the other artists that contributed greatly to this important American release” — with double drummers, special guests and epic jams. Take it here to reserve tix, priced at a quite reasonable $20 – $39.

Remember: Nothing makes a Red Bank friend happier than to hear "I saw you on Red Bank Green!"
redbankgreen Classics
Partyline
JUNETEENTH CELEBRATION
Performers at Red Bank’s Juneteenth community celebration Sunday at Johnny Jazz Park. (photo by Brian Donohue)      
BUTTERFLIES LOVE THE WEED
Save the monarch, plant butterfly weed. (photo and text by Partyline contributor Roseann DalPra)  
LANTERNFLY PARTY
An invasive ailanthus tree sprouting in front of the US Post Office on Broad Street is covered with invasive spotted lantern fly nymphs Wedn ...
STREETCORNER SERENADE
An Irish doodle named Cheddar listens to native New Jerseyan, singer/songwriter and former Houston resident Tom Foti, (identified in the hea ...
Red Bank 5K Fun!!!
Red Bank Classic – June 14th, 2025 (photo by Partyline contributor Adam Kaplan)  
RAINBOW OVER RED BANK
Saturday, before and after the storm that rolled through town. (photo by Partyline contributor Thomas Doremus)    
Mini Ballers Bring the Heat at Fusion Basketball School
As the temperatures heat up, so does the competition in the mini baller clinic at Fusion School of Basketball. These little tykes are intens ...
DOZENS OF PLEIN AIR ARTISTS “PAINT RED BANK”
Plein air artists take over town for first ever "Paint Red Bank" event. (click to read)
RED BANK: SIGN ON ICONIC DANNY’S STEAK HOUSE COMES DOWN
The sign hanging from the shuttered Danny's Steak House comes down ten months after a manager reported Danny's Steakhouse would be back "bet ...
FOR YANKEES FANS, GOOD TRASH PICKIN’
A collection of framed photographs of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and other New York Yankees greats was placed curbside along with a ...
RED BANK: NEW HANDICAPPED PARKING, WEST SIDE MEETING PLANNED
New handicapped parking sign West Side advocate had pressed for is installed, with meeting planned to discuss other concerns. (click to read ...
SUNSET AT SUMMER’S START
Crazy sunset clouds shot from Monmouth Boat Club on the Friday evening at the start of Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start of summer. ...
SIDEWALK GOES FROM WORST TO FIRST
P (photo by Brian Donohue) What had been, in our estimation – and apparently in the eyes of the several people who have emailed and te ...
RED BANK: PEERING FROM ON HIGH, ACROSS THE DECADES
Roofers on the Azalea Red Bank top off the project in the shadow of a sculpture depicting another generation of construction workers who toi ...
BRICK FACELIFT CONTINUES ON MONMOUTH STREET
A million-dollar brick sidwalk makeover of Monmouth Street in Red Bank continues.
JAY AND SILENT EAGLE
A very loud blue jay squawks at an indiferent bald eagle in a treetop alongside the Swimming River in Red Bank this week. (Partyline photo b ...
PIZZA LOVING SQUIRREL SPOTTED IN RED BANK
Pizza squirrel spotted in Red Bank. (click to read)
GET YOUR MA SOMETHIN’ NICE AT THE RED BANK FARMERS MARKET
It’s a beautiful and sunny Mother’s Day for the first instance of the farmer’s market, held every Sunday, beginning in May ...
SIGN? WHAT SIGN?
Folks in Red Bank Wednesday exercising their riparian rights to access tidal waters first encoded into Roman law in 500 AD and later adopted ...
FANTASTIC MR. FOX
Partyline contributor captures photo of backyard fox.