Billy & The Kids To Play Dear Jerry Pre-Show At 9:30 Club

On May 14 members of the Grateful Dead and some of their contemporaries as well as a number of artists they’ve influenced will come together at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland to honor Jerry Garcia at an event dubbed Dear Jerry. Today comes word Bill Kreutzmann’s Billy & The Kids will play an official Dear Jerry pre-show at the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C. on May 13.

Billy & The Kids finds Kreutzmann joined by guitarist Tommy Hamilton, keyboardist Aron Magner and bassist Reed Mathis. The quartet’s visit to the 9:30 Club will be their Washington, D.C. debut as well as their last show until after the five Fare Thee Well Grateful Dead 50 celebrations. With so many other Dear Jerry acts in the area, we wouldn’t be surprised to see a number of sit-ins at the 9:30 Club on the 13th. Tickets for Billy & The Kids at the 9:30 Club go on sale this morning at 10 a.m. ET via Ticketfly.

On May 5 Kreutzmann will release his memoir, Deal: My Three Decades of Drumming, Dreams and Drugs with The Grateful Dead, and will hit the road for a book tour in support of the tome.

Tickets for Dear Jerry sold out quickly after they went on sale. Billy & The Kids, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, Phil Lesh, Buddy Miller, David Grisman, Eric Church, Greensky Bluegrass, Jimmy Cliff, Jorma Kaukonen, Los Lobos, moe., O.A.R., Railroad Earth, The Disco Biscuits, Trampled By Turtles, Widespread Panic and Yonder Mountain String Band are among the acts scheduled to perform at the event. Head here for a list of Grateful Dead-related performances from 10 different Dear Jerry artists.