Dark Star Orchestra will bring another old Dead show to life.

Byline: Serena Markstrom The Register-Guard

There are some boats young people are glad they missed. The Titanic, for example.

But it's a different story for members of the generation that never got to see the Grateful Dead live but who have listened to bootlegged and official recordings, heard stories of life-changing shows and craved an otherworldly human experience - that energy exchange between audience and band.

For some of these people, a ripple of sadness runs through their relationship with the Dead's music. Sure, would-be Deadheads have toured with Phish or might make a summer of following String Cheese Incident around, but nothing has ever really matched the way the Grateful Dead captivated its listeners and spawned a subculture.

It's not the Dead, but the Dark Star Orchestra is as close as you're going to get. The group returns to the McDonald Theatre on Sunday for the 12th time.

Last year's performance, originally scheduled for the Cuthbert Amphitheater, was moved because of rain. The result was one of group's four sellout shows at the theater, publicist Doug Fuchs wrote in an e-mail. Four other of the Orchestra's McDonald shows have sold more than 1,000 tickets, he said.

The band chooses set lists from among the 3,500 concerts the Dead played, planning performances with an eye to historical accuracy. It uses gear from the era, deploys the number of drummers that show really had, and only uses female backing vocals when the show actually featured them.

However, members do not play the music note for note, striving instead to conjure the spirit of the Dead.

The group is bona fide. It has played with all but two surviving members of the Grateful Dead, won praise from national media and, perhaps more importantly, from the group's longtime fans.

Now in its 10th year, the Dark Star Orchestra has played more than 1,500 shows since getting started as a weekly jam in Chicago.

"We are doing it because it is the music we love and we're doing it because we want to hear it played live," singer and lead guitarist John Kadlecik said during a telephone interview.

Kadlecik first saw the Dead at an indoor show in Chicago when he was 19 or 20 in the late 1980s, he said. At the time, he was an accomplished violinist but was becoming more interested in improvisation.

"It was like, `Holy cow. I can't believe what these guys were doing with electric rock band music,'" he remembered thinking. "They were taking it to places that were as artistically intense as jazz but were accessible at the level of good roots dance music."

During a 2007 interview recorded for MoBoogie.net, Orchestra members Rob Barraco (keyboards, vocals), Rob Koritz (drums, percussion) and Kevin Rosen (bass, vocals) said when they played with Dead founding member Bob Weir, the experience sort of spooked "Ace."

"I think he gets off on it, too," Koritz said. "As John would play solos, Bobby would get closer and closer and keep inching toward that side of the stage to the point that when he went back to sing, he kept going back to the wrong microphone."

During the interview, the men also noted that while many of their fans never saw the Dead, they have won over a number of old Deadheads who said they were prepared to be disappointed and not have a good time with Dark Star. Some of these folks, they said, ride airplanes to see shows.

Kadlecik attributes his eerily reminiscent vocal delivery to a skill he's had since he was a child.

"I have always had a little bit of a vocal stylistic interpretive side," he said, adding he used to mimic the Swedish Chef from the Muppets and George Carlin just for fun. "Whatever I sing, certain aspects seem to come through and shape my voice unconsciously."

Most of the members of Dark Star Orchestra have musical side projects. But they continue with the tribute band because they love theDead's music, Kadlecik said, and they are still learning new songs.

Because improvisation is at center stage, the musicians' artistic sides are satisfied even as they cover someone else's compositions.

An orchestra, Kadlecik said, "is usually an ensemble that doesn't play original music. ... Another thing that was key in the inception is that we really wanted to emphasize the extended jamming, and we felt `Dark Star' was a song that embodied that quest."

Concert preview

Dark Star Orchestra

What: Grateful Dead redux 

With: The Bridge

When: 8 p.m. Sunday

Where: McDonald Theatre, 1010 Willamette St.

Tickets: $22 in advance, $24 at the door