After spending much of the summer on tour with The Dead [ tickets ], Grateful Dead alumnus Bob Weir and his group Ratdog [ tickets ] are set to embark on a month of club, theater and festival dates.

The outing gets underway with an appearance at Florida's Great Southern Music Harvest, a three-day festival that will also feature De La Soul, Blues Traveler, Pete Yorn, Charlie Hunter Trio, Guster and others.

Ratdog's current members include vocalist-guitarist Weir, drummer Jay Layne, keyboardist Jeff Chimenti, guitarist Mark Karan, saxophonist Kenny Brooks and bassist Robin Sylvester. Sylvester played his first gig with the group in March.

Weir formed Ratdog in 1995 with bassist Rob Wasserman, who is no longer involved with the group. The only Ratdog studio album is "Evening Moods," which Arista Records released in 2000.

The Dead--a group that features the four surviving members of the Grateful Dead--wraps up a short West Coast jaunt later this month.