Bob Weir and RatDog | RatDog.Org

Keeping track of all the Grateful Dead offshoots can be quite challenging. Bob Weir's six-piece ensemble, the unfortunately named Ratdog, put an end to the torch-passing discussion with an inspired and exhilarating performance Saturday night at the Orpheum.

In typically understated, gimmick-free style, Weir and his Ratdog mates made a quiet entrance, meandering onstage and fumbling through an amorphous jam that seemed more of a tuning exercise than anything else. Thankfully, the noodling suddenly ended with the band dropping effortlessly into a loose and surprisingly funky arrangement of the Dead classic ``The Music Never Stopped.''

Unlike other Dead-related projects, Ratdog has been around for quite awhile, and despite its beginnings as a side project for Weir, the 10-year-old band has quietly become the tightest and most musically interesting of the veteran jam-band scene. The throngs of patchouli-scented usual suspects packing the Orpheum seemed to agree, disregarding overwhelmed ushers' attempts to rein them in their seats and out of the aisles. Despite a discernible grayness taking over the dreadlocked and excessively haired masses, not much in the Deadhead crowd has changed. Suffice to say, the smoke filling the theater was not coming from any machines onstage.

The set didn't really catch fire until the band launched into the classic rock boogie of Dylan's ``Silvio,'' wrapping it up neatly with a joyous, straight-up cover of The Charms' ``Tequila.'' The street-beats of New Orleans were soon conjured on the tambourine shake of ``Iko Iko,'' Weir and his band locking into the Crescent City strut with ease.

A short acoustic set quickly changed the tone of the evening, beginning with the gambling ne'er-do-well cautionary tale of ``Me and My Uncle.'' Weir showed no misgivings on tackling his fallen leader's classics, letting his ragged baritone rumble all over the Jerry Garcia country folk standard ``Friend of the Devil'' and the sweet molasses drip of ``He's Gone.'' The string of classics was relentless, as the epic grandeur of the triumphant ``Eyes of the World'' closed the set, followed by a rousing encore of the appropriately titled r&b workout ``One More Saturday Night.'' Though boasting only one of the original Grateful Dead members, Bob Weir's Ratdog, even more so than the recently formed reunion band The Dead, appears to have come the closest to unearthing the essence of the legendary band.