Gillian Welch & David Rawlings Play Grateful Dead Acoustic Reckoning

Gillian Welch is one of the country's most incisive songwriters, able to make a few lines about Elvis or the Titanic, a tornado or red dirt feel like keys to understanding yourself or the sweep of human history. She and David Rawlings, her musical partner for more than 30 years, are one of music's most intoxicating duos. But as is clear from the music they make, Welch and Rawlings are patient people. They went nearly a decade without releasing new music, dissatisfied with the songs they were making in their Nashville studio. Since 2020, though, the two have been on a creative tear. This momentum has carried over to the stage, from a three-piece road show revisiting the Grateful Dead's songbook to duo sets where they can somehow roar like an ocean and get so close to silence you can almost hear the songs take shape. At Big Ears 2027, bassist Paul Kowert joins them for an evening of Dead.