Cubensis books a Saturday holiday party at The Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach

L.A.'s long-running Grateful Dead tribute plays the 178-capacity Hermosa Beach landmark on Sat., Dec. 19 — an afternoon show, doors at 3 p.m.

There are worse ways to spend a December Saturday in the South Bay than walking off Pier Plaza into The Lighthouse at 3 in the afternoon and letting a band take its time with "Scarlet Begonias." That's the plan on Dec. 19.

Cubensis plays The Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach on Saturday, Dec. 19, 2026. Doors are at 3 p.m., the music starts at 4 p.m., and tickets are $17.85 through Eventbrite, where the date is billed as the band's Saturday holiday party. The show was announced Oct. 22. The Lighthouse holds 178, which is small for a band with this kind of following, so this is one to sort out now rather than the week before Christmas.

If you've been around the Dead scene in Southern California, you probably already know the name. Cubensis is a Los Angeles Grateful Dead tribute that has been playing since 1987, and its pitch is simple: shows that draw from every era of the Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Band catalogs, long jams and setlists that change from night to night. That last part matters for anyone who has caught them before — there's no guarantee you'll hear the same thing twice, which is the point.

The band has also come through real loss. Relix reported the death of founding member and guitarist Craig Marshall, who was widely credited with helping build the Dead's following around Los Angeles. A Cubensis show today carries some of that history with it, and a holiday party in a small room is exactly the kind of night where a band like this plays for its people.

A Cubensis show in a room like this one carries a lot of South Bay history with it.

Then there's the room. The Lighthouse has one of the deepest music histories on this stretch of coast. In 1949, former Stan Kenton bassist Howard Rumsey started Sunday afternoon sessions there, and the club became a center of West Coast jazz, with the Lighthouse All-Stars and visiting players including Shorty Rogers, Bud Shank, Shelly Manne and Max Roach, according to the Hermosa Beach Historical Society and uDiscover Music's history of the club. More than 25 records were cut there between 1952 and 1989. Later owners widened the booking to local rock and punk, and the club turned up in *La La Land*.

An afternoon slot fits that legacy nicely. Those early Lighthouse sessions were Sunday afternoon affairs too, and a Saturday matinee by a jam band leans into the same idea: get there early, settle in, and let the music run long before the sun goes down over the pier. It also means you're out by dinner, which leaves the rest of a holiday Saturday open.

For tickets, the Eventbrite listing is the one to use. With 178 spots and a band that has been packing rooms around Los Angeles for nearly four decades, the safe move is to buy before the holiday crunch hits.

See you on the patio at 3.

Sources: MZ Tribute Bands: Cubensis (mztributebands.com); Relix: Craig Marshall, founding member of Cubensis, passes away (relix.com); Hermosa Beach Historical Society: Jazz in Hermosa (hermosabeachhistoricalsociety.org); uDiscover Music: The Lighthouse Cafe, West Coast jazz by the beach (udiscovermusic.com); Wikipedia: Lighthouse Café (en.wikipedia.org); Eventbrite: Cubensis Saturday Holiday Party (eventbrite.com); JamBase: Cubensis at The Lighthouse (jambase.com)