Abby Grafmyre

Traxx and Rokkyn Nelson-Kavajecz of Born Too Late, seen here playing at Duluth Does David Bowie show in 2025, are part of the lineup at Duluth Does the Dead at Sacred Heart Music Festival on Sept. 26. (Photo by Michael Anderson)

When the pioneering jam band Grateful Dead rose to counterculture stardom in the 1970s, upcoming Minnesota musicians like Israel Malachi and Paul Metsa were listening and learning. Malachi recalls having a fondness for the 1969 album Live/Dead when he was 12 years old. Metsa turned 18 in 1973, the start of what he feels were the Deads’ peak years.

Five decades later, Traxx Nelson-Kavajecz of the band Born Too Late is in the same shoes Metsa and Malachi wore in the 1970s at the start of their musical journeys. At age 19, he’s only familiar with a few Grateful Dead songs, but will join his elder counterparts and a lineup of about two-dozen acts on Saturday, Sept. 26, at Sacred Heart Music Center to pay tribute to the iconic rock band famous for fusing rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, country and jazz improvisation. (more…)