Phil Lesh and Friends deliver Dead with a bite

Deadheads, both itinerant and local, flooded downtown Phoenix on Thursday night as Phil Lesh and Friends opened their "There and Back Again" tour at the Dodge Theatre.

Even without the wide-open spaces that the Grateful Dead's outdoor shows offered, hippie vendors and artisans plied their wares outside the cavernous theater, selling everything from vegan burritos to incense and hash pipes.

Inside, it wasn't much different from a Dead show either. Lesh's band ably tackled his former band's catalog, giving the Valley's fans a four-hour show of vintage Dead tunes along with a pair of tracks from their new disc, There and Back Again.

Lesh shared vocal duties with keyboardist Rob Barraco through most of the show, their voices providing a more-than-adequate replacement for the late Jerry Garcia.

Of course, Lesh and Friends sounded much like the Dead. But lead guitarist Warren Haynes, from the jam band Gov't Mule, upped the blues factor, adding some bite to the tunes. His dirty slide playing provided a sharp contrast to Garcia's liquid leads on the classic Dead track "Scarlet Begonias." Haynes even got to spotlight a tune he did with the Allman Brothers Band, "Soul Shine," in the first set. Second guitarist Jimmy Herring provided a more Garcia-like sound, complementing Haynes' picking with some nimble melody lines.

The band opened with a lengthy improv that gradually morphed into the Dead classic "Here Comes Sunshine," before disintegrating once again into another improvised jam. Indeed, the first set included just six songs, which interrupted Lesh and Friends' noodling.

After an extended intermission, Lesh and Friends returned for another extended jam. Opening with "Till the Morning Comes," from the archetypal Dead album American Beauty, the band wound their way through another two hours of Dead tunes, climaxing in a mammoth jam around the classic "Dark Star."

As the band took the tune further into space, they eventually arrived at a letter-perfect reading of the Beatles' "I Am the Walrus" before returning to "Dark Star." A rousing, and unexpected, version of "I Know You Rider" closed the show, surprising in that it wasn't preceded by the usual "China Cat Sunflower."

After a brief speech about the importance of organ donors (Lesh is still performing because of a successful liver transplant four years ago), the band closed the show with "Mason's Children, " a fan favorite the Dead never recorded.

As midnight neared, the Deadheads left. Some headed out to their VW Buses to travel to the next gig. Others packed their kids into their cars and headed home. Either way, they all shared a special night celebrating the music of one of America's greatest bands.