VAIL, Colorado — The Grateful Dead always centered their concerts around the energy of the audience, with the goal of making the audience's state of mind the focal point of the music. This goal is mirrored by a Colorado collaboration of Grateful Dead tribute bands, called Rocky Mountain Grateful Dead Revue, who will be in Vail this weekend.

“Grateful Dead music has always been about community and I think a show like this nicely exhibits the kind of musical community we have in the valley,” said Trevor Jones from Frogs Gone Fishin', the band opening for the revue Friday night at the Sandbar. “We've enjoyed plugging Dead tunes like Shakedown Street, Bertha or Sugaree into our set-lists for the last year or so and I'm interested to see how The Revue interprets those same songs.”

RMGDR, as the band is affectionately called by Vail musicians, has been playing together since 2005 when they formed to mark the 10th anniversary of Jerry Garcia's death. The premise of the band, not surprisingly, is the Dead's creed: Join the party. Grateful Dead tribute bands from around the state, including Shakedown Street and Dark Star Orchestra, each volunteer one member of their band to play in RMGDR concerts, so the artists are always changing, while the music stays the same.

‘Having a great time'

Local drummer Jake Wolf has performed with RMGDR before and says the band always tries to do sets in the real spirit of the Dead.

“I've been told repetitively the energy we create on the stage and the interaction with the audience [makes the band stand out from other tribute bands],” Wolf said. “And it is so obvious to the most casual of observers that we're having a great time.

“We definitely have a pretty tight knit core of fans that come out a lot and we talk to them to figure out the mood that the crowd is in,” Wolf continued. “And we aren't so stuck to a set list, so if someone shouts something out in the middle of a set of songs, we will play it.”

In addition, the guys try to “play” a member of the original band while they're on stage to authenticate the experience.

“For me, I would say I try to find myself in between Billy Kreutzmann and John Molo, and Molo is the drummer for Phil Lesh and Friends,” Wolf told the Vail Daily for a story about the Revue in March. “The two drummers for the Grateful Dead were Billy and Mickey (Hart), but I do less Mickey because it doesn't sound right being a single drummer.”

Just like the Dead, the band also includes their own musical interludes and spontaneous jam sessions that are all part of the tribute to the one of the greatest interactive jam bands of all time. RMGDR usually focuses on the Dead's songs from the '70s, but with the addition of Frogs Gone Fishin' drummer Mark Levy, there's the option to explore more of the later tunes. Wolf, a music teacher by day at Avon Elementary School, is excited to explore this territory.

“You can expect some late '70s stuff, early '80s,” Wolf said. “And with the double drums, it makes it easier, and we've been doing mostly early '70s so it'll be great to do something else. We will also have a surprise musician to pop into the show, in the spirit of Halloween.”

Get ready to become a real Dead Head this Halloween weekend.

E-mail comments about this story to cschnell@vaildaily.com.