Bill Kreutzmann Plans ‘A Very Grateful Thanksgiving’ in Hawaii

The event featuring Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Holly Bowling, and others, will "be a coming together of the Deadhead community," the drummer tells Rolling Stone

When you’re Bill Kreutzmann, there’s only a fine line between feeling “thankful” and “Grateful” on Thanksgiving. The drummer, best known as a founding member of the Grateful Dead, will blend those emotions into a three-day blowout called “A Very Grateful Thanksgiving” this year. It it scheduled to take place at Kauai, Hawaii’s Porter Pavilion on Nov. 27, 28, and 29.

The performers will include David Rawlings and Gillian Welch, who teased the event by offering to visit Kreutzmann on Instagram as “our way of giving thanks,” as well as Holly Bowling, who is known for piano improvisations on Dead songs like “Brokedown Palace,” and Sam Grisman, whose father played in an ensemble with Jerry Garcia in the early Nineties. Both of the latter artists posted similar teasers saying they’d like to come out to Hawaii to play with Kreutzmann on Thanksgiving. Alphonso Johnson and Mark Kara, who played with Kreutzmann, in the Other Ones are set to perform, as are Kreutzmann’s Billy and the Kids bandmates Aron Magner and Reed Mathis.

“I still love seeing music, almost as much as I love playing it, and I miss my fallen brothers, and I miss being around all the Deadheads,” Kreutzmann tells Rolling Stone. “It’s a feeling that has left me overwhelmed with gratitude and thanks. 

“So for Thanksgiving this year, I wanted to throw a party and hear some of the musicians I’ve been digging lately take their turn,” he continues. “But the part of Kauai that I live on really took a blow with the hurricane. The island is still recovering. So I decided to move my Thanksgiving party a couple miles over, to the Porter Pavilion, and make it a weekend-long celebration — with everyone invited. It’ll benefit my local venue (which took a hit from the storm) and it’ll be a coming together of the Deadhead community, including all these incredible musicians.”

Other musicians who will perform include members of Eggy, the String Cheese Incident, Punch Brothers, and Skeleton Crewe.

Full details for the event are on the website for Anaina Hou Community Park, which hosts the Porter Pavilion. Tickets go on sale at 8 AM Hawaiian time on Wednesday.

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“I can barely remember the brief periods of time, in Grateful Dead history, where we weren’t traveling around, touring the country and playing shows,” Kreutzmann says. “When we weren’t on stage, we were on a bus, a plane, or a hotel room. The endless race. I can’t do that anymore. Not like that.

“As we’ve all seen, these songs haven’t stopped just because the band did,” he continues. “They were never meant to be presented as snapshots from the past, stuck in time — they’re still evolving in real time. There’s a great gift of renewal somewhere in there.”