Levitt Pavilion announced Dark Star Orchestra and Josh Ritter & The Royal City Band
Tickets are on sale now for Dark Star Orchestra and Josh Ritter & The Roayal City Band via levittpavilion.com
Dark Star Orchestra
Levitt Pavilion • 40 Jesup Rd, Westport, CT 06880
July 19, 2025
Tickets are on sale now levittpavilion.com
Dark Star Orchestra
Performing to critical acclaim for over 20 years and over 3000 shows, Dark Star Orchestra continues the Grateful Dead live concert experience. Their shows are built off the Dead’s extensive catalog and the talent of these seven fine musicians. On any given night, the band will perform a show based on a set list from the Grateful Dead’s 30 years of extensive touring or use their catalog to program a unique set list for the show. This allows fans both young and old to share in the experience. By recreating set lists from the past, and by developing their own sets of Dead songs, Dark Star Orchestra offers a continually evolving artistic outlet within this musical canon. Honoring both the band and the fans, Dark Star Orchestra’s members seek out the unique style and sound of each era while simultaneously offering their own informed improvisations.
Dark Star Orchestra offers much more than the sound of the Grateful Dead, they truly encapsulate the energy and the experience. It’s about a sense of familiarity. It’s about a feeling that grabs listeners and takes over. It’s about that contagious energy…in short, it’s about the complete experience and consistent quality show that the fan receives when attending a Dark Star Orchestra show.
Dark Star Orchestra has performed throughout the entire United States, including a sold out debut at Colorado’s Red Rocks Park & Amphitheater, plus shows in Europe and the Caribbean with the band touching down in seven different countries. DSO continues to grow its fan base by playing at larger venues for two and even three-night stands, as well as performing at major music festivals including Bonnaroo, Milwaukee’s SummerFest, The Peach Music Festival, Jam Cruise, Wanee Festival, SweetWater 420 Festival, Mountain Jam, and many more.
In addition to appearing at some of the nation’s top festival, Dark Star Orchestra hosts its own annual music festival and campaign gathering, titled the “Dark Star Jubilee”, currently in its eighth year where DSO headline all three nights and are joined by a mix of established and up and coming national touring acts. Beyond the shores of the United States, DSO has taken its internationally-acclaimed Grateful Dead tribute to the beaches of Jamaica in the dead of winter for the past six years, with their event appropriately titled ‘Jam in the Sand’. Featuring an ocean-side stage, DSO sets up camp to perform shows for four nights along the tropical sands of an all-inclusive resort, selling out the event each year for hundreds of lucky attendees.
Fans and critics haven’t been the only people caught up in the spirit of a Dark Star show. The band has featured guest performances from six original Grateful Dead members Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay, Vince Welnick, Tom Constanten and even toured with longtime Dead soundman, Dan Healy. Other notable guests have included Mike Gordon and Jon Fishman of Phish, Keller Williams, Warren Haynes, Steve Kimock, Peter Rowan, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot and many more.
“For us it’s a chance to recreate some of the magic that was created for us over the years,” keyboardist and vocalist Rob Barraco explains. “We offer a sort of a historical perspective at what it might have been like to go to a show in 1985, 1978 or whenever. Even for Deadheads who can say they’ve been to a hundred shows in the 90s, we offer something they never got to see live.”
Josh Ritter & The Royal City Band with Bhi Bhiman
Levitt Pavilion • 40 Jesup Rd, Westport, CT 06880
August 20, 2025
Tickets are on sale now levittpavilion.com
Josh Ritter & The Royal City Band
Josh Ritter is a renowned singer, songwriter, musician, artist and best-selling author. One of today’s most thoughtful and prolific voices, he has released eleven studio albums including 2019’s widely acclaimed, Fever Breaks, of which NPR Music praised, “He remains a hydrant of ideas while embodying an endless capacity for empathy and indignation, often within a single song.”
In addition to his work as a musician, Ritter is also a national best-selling author, having released two novels to date: 2021’s The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All and 2011’s Bright’s Passage. Released to critical attention, Stephen King wrote in The New York Times Book Review that Bright’s Passage “shines with a compressed lyricism that recalls Ray Bradbury in his prime…This is the work of a gifted novelist.”
“Josh Ritter remains at the top of his game two decades into a highlight-strewn career. He’d be forgiven for loosening his grip, but his hand has never felt surer.” – NPR Music
“Harking back to Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and maybe a little Mark Knopfler, Mr. Ritter has always been a slinger of serious ideas and high-flown imagery.” – The New York Times
“Mysterious, melancholy, melodic…and those are only the M’s.” – Stephen King in Entertainment Weekly
Bhi Bhiman
Bhi Bhiman is an acclaimed American singer, songwriter, and producer, whose unforgettable voice has been compared to Nina Simone by NPR, and described by the Washington Post as “a keening, gender-neutral yawp that’s as earthy as it is ethereal.” Along with three studio albums BHIMAN (2012), Rhythm & Reason (2015), and the innovative Peace of Mind (2019), released as a podcast, Bhiman has collaborated with a diverse list of creatives including comedian/actor Keegan-Michael Key, author Dave Eggers, rapper / director Boots Riley, and late iconic musician Chris Cornell.
Bhiman’s upcoming album I’ll Sleep When I’m Famous (July 2022) is his most personal release to date. Co-produced by Sam Kassirer (who worked on the critically acclaimed BHIMAN and Rhythm & Reason albums), the nine-song album sports a world-weary, but wide-eyed positivity. Recorded entirely at his home studio, these songs were inspired by the pop sensibility of the rock music Bhi grew up on in the 90s, and is a call back to the more acoustic sound found on his debut. “These songs deal with the ever-increasing presence of death in our lives,” Bhiman explains, connecting to both the Covid pandemic and personal loss. “I hope that it can be cathartic to those who’ve experienced loss, not as a downer but as a reality check. The reason we create art to begin with, is that we don’t see enough beauty in the world. And his record is meant to replace some of the beauty that’s been taken from us.”
“One of America’s best-kept secrets.” — The Times (London)
“Solid, unimpeachable songwriting.” —Afropunk
“What a voice.” —The New York Times
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