Photo: Dino Perrucci

This past weekend, Dark Star Jubilee returned to Legend Valley in Thornville, Ohio, for the 2025 multi-act live music gathering presentation. The three-day event flexed the power of collaboration, sit-ins, and unexpected team-ups, climaxing on Sunday, May 25. It positioned players like Warren Haynes and Daniel Donato beside the host band and each other at separate points. 

During the Grateful Dead cover band, Dark Star Orchestra’s final festival frame, the band brought out special guests, but not before clocking in renditions of The Crickets turned Grateful Dead cover, “Not Fade Away” as the apt concert opener. After turning in their first cover, the band welcomed Donato to apply his guitar chops to “Cumberland Blues” and follow-up, “Easy Wind.”

Sans guest, Dark Star Orchestra proceeded with its initial set, with included takes on the Phil Lesh-referenced “Box of Rain,” before turning up the tempo on “Hell in a Bucket” and “Althea.” The band harnesses this might to “Beat it on Down the Line,” before the sweetness of “I’ll Take a Melody” broke the mold as a practical reference to Jerry Garcia. Keeping spirits lifted, the band welcomed Haynes on “Shakedown Street” and Traffic’s “Low Spark of High Heeled Boys,” which he had performed with Lesh & Friends. 

While the hosts did not bring out additional assistance during their second set, which featured another ode to Traffic via “Dear Mr. Fantasy,” their festival format allowed for more joint action during Haynes’ last festival set, when he brought out Rob Barraco, a member of the Phil Lesh Quintet, to assist on a feature of that group’s repertoire, “Patchwork Quilt.” Barraco stuck around, and his DSO bandmate, Jeff Matson, arrived for follow-ups, “That’s What Love Will Make You Do” and “Black Peter.”

For Haynes’ final move as a part of Dark Star Jubilee, he welcomed Donato to sit in on his own triumph, “Soulshine.” Previously, during the 2024 edition of Daze Between NOLA, the pair above teamed up on the Allman Brothers Band-associated number.

Warren Haynes Band 

Dark Star Jubilee 

Legend Valley – Thornville, Ohio 

May 25, 2025

Set: Man in Motion, This Life as We Know It, Spots of Time, Go Down Swinging, Banks of the Deep End, These Changes, Patchwork Quilt+, Black Peter#, That’s What Love Will Make You Do#, Thorazine Shuffle, Invisible, Soulshine@

Notes: 

+ Phil Lesh & Friends cover with Rob Barraco 

# With Rob Barraco and Jeff Matson 

@ With Daniel Donato 

Dark Star Orchestra 

Dark Star Jubilee 

Legend Valley – Thornville, Ohio 

May 25, 2025

Set I: Not Fade Away, Cumberland Blues@, Easy Wind@, Box of Rain, Hell in a Bucket, Althea, Beat It on Down the Line, I’ll Take a Melody, Shakedown Street#, Low Spark of High Heeled Boys#

Set II: Scarlet Begonias, Eyes of the World, Corrina, Drums, Space, I Need a Miracle, Dear Mr. Fantasy, Morning Dew

Enc.: Woodstock 

Notes: 

@ With Daniel Donato 

# With Warren Haynes