Joe Russo's Almost Dead Announce 2027 Tour: 18 Dates, Sold-Out Capitol Run

Joe Russo's Almost Dead have announced an 18-date tour running from November 12, 2026 through May 14, 2027, including a three-night residency at The Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York, that sold out across all dates. The Brooklyn-born quintet, formed in 2013, has built its reputation on radically reworking the Grateful Dead catalogue live.

The band is led by drummer Joe Russo and features guitarists Tom Hamilton and Scott Metzger, bassist Dave Dreiwitz and keyboardist Marco Benevento. Their approach treats familiar songs as launching pads: extended jams, explosive rhythms and what the announcement calls "spontaneous musical conversations." The group's core idea is that a Grateful Dead song can go "somewhere completely unexpected," which is precisely what keeps a devoted audience buying tickets fast enough to exhaust a 1,700-capacity theatre three nights in a row.

What's on the schedule?

The itinerary falls into three blocks, plus a fall 2026 warm-up:

• November 2026: State Theatre, New Brunswick, NJ (Nov 12); Warner Theatre, Washington, DC (Nov 13, sold out); The Met Philadelphia (Nov 14).
• January 2027: The Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY, Jan 15-17 — all three nights sold out.
• February 2027: Spartanburg Memorial Auditorium, SC (Feb 18); Durham Performing Arts Center, NC (Feb 19); Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts, Greensboro, NC (Feb 20); Pompano Beach Amphitheater, FL (Feb 25); The BayCare Sound, Clearwater, FL (Feb 26); Amp Jam 3 festival in Live Oak, FL (Feb 27).
• Spring 2027: The Truth, Nashville, TN (April 29); Avondale Brewing Company, Birmingham, AL (April 30); The Fillmore New Orleans (May 1); Live Oak Bank Pavilion, Wilmington, NC (May 13); The Dome by Rutter Mills, Virginia Beach, VA (May 14).

Who's sitting in, and why does it matter?

One lineup change stands out. Erik Deutsch of The Black Crowes will replace Marco Benevento on keyboards for the three spring shows on April 29, April 30 and May 1 — the Nashville, Birmingham and New Orleans dates. Benevento is a generative force in the band's sound, so a substitute of Deutsch's pedigree shifts the chemistry of that southern run. Fans deciding which nights to travel for should factor that swap in.

What does this change for Deadheads?

Practically, it means scarcity. Four of the eighteen announced dates — the entire Capitol Theatre residency and the Warner Theatre show — are already sold out. That's a concrete measure of the audience JRAD has cultivated since forming in 2013, roughly a decade of word-of-mouth built on live improvisation rather than studio records.

The tour's logic follows the band's own stated philosophy: "the greatest pleasure of improvisational music comes from the possibilities waiting around the next corner." Each show recombines the Dead songbook with each player's individual voice, so no two nights on this run will match. For the February Florida leg, JRAD also headlines rather than festival-hops, playing their own sets at Pompano Beach Amphitheater and The BayCare Sound around the Amp Jam 3 appearance.

With the sold-out dates locked and the Deutsch substitution confirmed for the spring run, the remaining windows for ticket buyers are the November 2026 openers and the February Carolinas-Florida stretch.