The Grateful String Band’s Friday Engagement at Beverly Arts Center: Homecoming To Pack House, Raise the Roof

Musicians Steve Haberichter and Garrett Degnan circled Friday, October 24, 2025 on their calendars some time ago - and for good reasons.

The Grateful String Band’s return engagement to the Beverly Arts Center feels like “a homecoming” and a way to “give back” by filling every seat in the Baffes Theatre while supporting the most central of nonprofits in the community.

“When you pack a theater you feel like you’re all in it together - the art house, audience and musicians,” said Haberichter. “Great music elevates that festive atmosphere, and we got that covered in aces.”

Both Haberichter and Degnan have called Beverly/Morgan Park home in their lives and favor the arts center when their in-demand schedule allows for a weekend booking.

“It’s always a great night when The Grateful String Band comes to the BAC,” said Matt McKinney, artist director at Beverly Arts Center. “Our community shows up big for them, and the music and energy they bring to the stage is completely invigorating. I'd advise fans to get their tickets sooner than later."

The way members of The Grateful String Band see it in a crowded landscape of Grateful Dead cover bands, “it takes more than tie-dyes and long jams to stand out” to truly capture the improvisation that was the very cornerstone of their identity.

Band members bristle at the notion The Grateful String Band a tribute band; rather, the musicians are masters of traditional bluegrass sounds that cull the best from the Dead songbook.

With Haberichter on mandolin, Degnan on upright bass, Kris Nowak on acoustic guitar and Pete Smith on banjo, the bands jells in a full-scale exploration The Grateful Dead’s song books while tapping into psychedelic rock and Appalachian soul.

“The Dead’s musical universe is vast and composed in such a way that it leads us to new heights with every performance,” said Haberichter. “Like our audiences, we dig the favorites, as well as the deep cuts, whether it’s Pigpen’s raw blues or Jerry Garcia’s spacey ballads.

All delivered with foot-stomping energy and reverence for the source, The Grateful String Band touches down on stages all around the Chicagoland map.

“We don’t attempt to replicate the Dead’s shows, sound, or stage presence,” said Haberichter. “Our harmony as a band allows us to reinterpret songs from one of the great catalogs composed over time by the Grateful Dead, which includes their side projects, their traditional tunes and even Dead covers that gave new life under their creative direction and free flow spirits.”

And the journey doesn’t stop with the Dead. The Grateful String Band follows the thread through Old & In the Way, the Jerry Garcia Band, and wherever that musical spirit may wander.

“If the Dead played it, jammed on it, or simply loved it," said Haberichter, "we come ready to break it down, grass it up, and send it racing through a mandolin at blazing speed.”

Beverly Arts Center tickets for The Grateful String Band are $35 for non-members and $32 for members. Visit thebeverlyartscenter.com to purchase tickets and select seats. The Beverly Arts Center is located at 2407 West 111th Street, Chicago.