By Scott McLennan

The challenge for the Boston Pops in this program is obvious: combining the structure of orchestral music with the improvisational nature of Garcia’s work. On Tuesday, June 3, the pairing of rock band and orchestra proved to be uneven, groovy interludes interlaced with tentative patches.

Keith Lockhart conducts the Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration. Photo: Hilary Scott, courtesy of the Boston Pops

Sixty years after the founding of the Grateful Dead, the band’s music and tribal culture have ventured well beyond the traditional homes for rock ’n’ roll. Now, it can be found in classier joints, such as Boston’s Symphony Hall.

Tie-dye-clad fans and the attendant aroma of weed were standard accoutrements for the crowd gathering on Huntington Avenue on Tuesday night for the first of two sold-out Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration concerts by the Boston Pops. Conductor Keith Lockhart and the Pops were joined by organ player Melvin Seals, guitarist Tom Hamilton, bass player Oteil Burbridge, drummer John Morgan Kimock, and singers Jacklyn LaBranch and Lady Chi for a jubilant exploration of Jerry Garcia, a guitarist and songwriter with the rare talent to be both adventurous and accessible — not just within a single concert, but also within a single song.

The Pops were early adopters of symphonic homages to Garcia, first teaming with guitarist Warren Haynes and his handpicked band in 2013. The musical partnership was resurrected sporadically over the next few years.

The 2025 iteration of the Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration, which is also destined for Denver in July, features a freshened-up performer lineup: Seals and La Branch are two of Garcia’s longtime associates in the guitarist’s namesake side project; Hamilton is an arch interpreter of Garcia’s work in the tribute band Joe Russo’s Almost Dead; Burbridge performs with surviving members of the Grateful Dead in the group Dead and Co.

While all these musicians speak the same language, they draw on very different cadences and dialects. Seals is as soulful a player as you’ll ever hear; Hamilton knows exactly how to push Garcia’s music to the sonic breaking point, belying its image as mellow hippie music without blowing out its essence; Burbridge is immersed in the contemporary delivery of Dead music.

Oteil Burbridge is playing bass, and Tom Hamilton, in cap, is playing guitar at the Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration. Photo: Hilary Scott, courtesy of the Boston Pops

The challenge for the Pops in this program is obvious: combining the structure of orchestral music with the improvisational nature of Garcia’s work. On Tuesday, the pairing of rock band and orchestra proved uneven, with groovy interludes interlaced with tentative patches.

When everything clicked, the results were spectacular. The Pops elevated the beautiful “Birdsong,” a signature Garcia ballad built for long, exploratory soloing, and Hamilton dove right in. Lockhart still kept the song on track, in contrast to other instances when the conductor seemed to be waiting on Hamilton to cue when the Pops should jump in.

From the opening number, “Cats Under the Stars,” Hamilton appeared to be doing his best to curb his extroverted approach in order to make room for the Pops. But the six-piece rock band couldn’t help but overwhelm, and for long stretches, the Pops musicians were doing as much waiting and watching as playing. Similarly, Seals’s rich organ work was often swallowed up in the proceedings, suggesting he was Garcia’s one-man orchestra all along.

That said, almost all of the selections had their bright moments: the brass accents atop Hamilton’s guitar work on “The Wheel”; the Pops’ “jam” to close out the psychedelic anthem “China Cat Sunflower”; the enveloping warmth the Pops brought to “Reuben and Cherise”; and the balanced intermingling of rockers and Pops on “Run for the Roses.”

The concert’s high point came during a second-set reading of the Dead’s funky, anthemic “Shakedown Street.” Everything clicked here: the Pops added an extra level of energy to the song while Hamilton, Seals, and crew busted out what program notes (handed out to journalists) referred to as “sweet jams.”

Audience members take selfies at the Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration. Photo: Hilary Scott, courtesy of the Boston Pops

Other potential epic experiences, however, missed the mark. Unsurprisingly, the Pops and guests played “Terrapin Station,” a piece released in 1977 as a long-form suite that included strings and horns. Yet the Dead usually performed it as a pared-down mini rock opera. Surprisingly, the Pops and guests stuck to the pared-down arrangement of the song rather than cracking open the orchestral segments.

And the ensemble wobbled through the spectral “Morning Dew,” with Burbridge seeming to have trouble with the timing of his vocal delivery.

But these misfires did not tank the concert. These and other rough spots were probably the result of unfamiliarity with playing together and limited rehearsal opportunity. Those barriers were not just evident between the rockers and the Pops. For a finale, the Pops left the stage and the guest crew kicked off Eric Clapton’s “Lay Down Sally,” a song covered by the Jerry Garcia Band. Hamilton and Burbridge locked into a meaty jam, but the performance slowly wound down — it never blasted off.

Garcia was typically at his best when he embraced risk in his performance, and that ethos is reflected in the Pops’ symphonic celebration of the musician’s work. And as the man himself sang so many times, “Sometimes the light’s all shinin’ on me, other times I can barely see.”

Scott McLennan covered music for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette from 1993 to 2008. He then contributed music reviews and features to The Boston Globe, Providence Journal, Portland Press Herald, and WGBH, as well as to The Arts Fuse. He also operated the NE Metal blog to provide in-depth coverage of the region’s heavy metal scene.