Phil Lesh and Friends back to the road in February

Phil Lesh & Friends will take on some extended East Coast engagements in February, making good a promise Lesh made last year when he left New York and a few other cities off his touring calendar.

Lesh--best known for his decades of work with The Grateful Dead--and his band will kick off a five-night stand Feb. 10 at New York's Beacon Theater; similar multi-night runs will follow during February at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom, and also in Providence, RI, and Philadelphia. Lesh and his band will play 13 shows in all, covering the three cities on the schedule.

The sites had been left off Lesh's 2005 Shadow of the Moon tour. "Due to circumstances beyond our control, we are unable to play New York City this tour but we're planning some special shows in New York City and Philadelphia in February," Lesh wrote on his website at the time.

For the Shadow of the Moon tour, Lesh's ever-revolving cast of musical "Friends" consisted of keyboardist Mookie Siegel, pedal-steel wiz Barry Sless, guitarist Jimmy Herring, drummer John Molo and vocalist Chris Robinson (of the recently rejuvenated Black Crowes). The band's lineup for the February tour has not yet been announced.

Last year marked the 40th anniversary of the formation of the Grateful Dead, which had fans speculating that the legendary band--re-dubbed simply The Dead in the wake of the 1995 death of frontman Jerry Garcia--would mark the milestone by regrouping for a tour, but Lesh's busy touring schedule with his own band likely prevented this from happening, if in fact it was ever under serious consideration.