Dead-Zep: A Tribute to The Grateful Dead and Led Zeppelin

It’s somewhat boggling to think of Jerry Garcia and Jimmy Page swapping riffs – the beatific Buddha and the slashing, edgy Page. But as veteran player of Grateful Dead music Waynard Scheller noticed one night, the chords of the Dead anthem “St. Stephen” merged seamlessly into “Whole Lotta Love.”  Then he sat down and found lots of pairs of songs that fit together.  And thus was born “Dead-Zep,” a new band formed from his Rainbow Full of Love to mash up the two repertoires

They not only flow from Zep to Dead and back again, they play Zep songs like the GD and Dead songs the way Zep would…which makes for a fascinating, sometimes shocking evening.  Hearing “Ramble On” suddenly dissolve into “St. Stephen” can be amazing to the point of a slight and interesting sense of disorientation.  It’s a wide, wide world. Waynard has been touring up and down the East Coast for years, delighting Dead Heads and other listeners.  He founded Dead-Zep with a rotating cast in 2018, and then ran into the pandemic.  Now that things are a little healthier…it’s time for Dead-Zep to step out onstage. It’s time now for something (almost) completely different!