Keanu Reeves’ excellent adventure with Dogstar at BottleRock Napa 2023

Keanu Reeves had a big day at BottleRock Napa Valley on Saturday.

First off, the A-list celebrity’s band Dogstar — which also features former Los Gatos resident Bret Domrose on vocals and guitar as well as Robert Mailhouse on drums — performed its first show in over 20 years for a huge crowd of curious festival-goers at the big Verizon Stage.

Then Reeves, who plays bass in the alt-rock act, and fellow bandmates took to the Williams Sonoma Culinary Stage for a cooking demonstration with famed chef Roy Choi and host Liam “Foodie Chap” Mayclem that ended up turning into a burrito tossing party that featured San Francisco 49er George Kittle.

Yeah, more on that later.

Of course, many of the attendees might not have even released that the “John Wick” star was part of a band, given that Dogstar’s heyday came back in the mid-’90s with the release of the EP “Quattro Formaggi” and opening act stints for both David Bowie and Bon Jovi. The group did release two full-lengths — 1996’s “Our Little Visionary” and 2000’s “Happy Ending” — neither of which ended up making much noise and were quickly overshadowed Reeves’ continued success on the big screen.

Yet, I managed to see Dogstar perform a show at the Fillmore in San Francisco in 1997 and the band was pretty enjoyable on the live stage. So, I was looking forward to catching them again 25-plus years later to see how their music has held up.

The answer is that it’s held up pretty well.

Reeves proved to be a more-just-capable bassist, combining to form a pretty solid rhythm section with Mailhouse, who is also known for his work on NBC-TV soap opera “Days of our Lives.” Domrose, who grew up in Santa Clara County and graduated from Prospect High School in Saratoga, sounded strong on both vocals and guitar as he guided the band through a roughly 45-minute set of earnest ’90s-era rock.

The show seemed to go over well with the crowd, which included a contingent of professional football players. San Francisco 49er George Kittle was part of the mix, punctuating the close of the show by yelling out:

“Thank you, John Wick!”

The gig was an unexpected one-off for the Dogstar guys, who actually had been getting together to record new tracks but had no real plans to perform live.

“We’ve got a new record coming out,” Domrose informed the crowd. “We’ve been playing it a lot in Rob’s basement and it’s really fun to see it coming out.”

(Domrose would later tell me that there is no firm timeline for the new record to hit stores, but reasoned that an October release date seemed possible. I also mentioned to him that Kittle was watching Dogstar show — something that seemed to thrill the 49er fan.)

The Dogstar reunion gig came about after savvy BottleRock talent buyer Tom Hoppa reportedly contacted the musicians to see if they might be interested in filling an unexpected open spot on the bill.

They were down for the challenge and, thus, the comeback trail took the band straight to Napa.

Oh, and why not do a little cooking demonstration while they were at the festival?

Chef Choi had the band help make some Korean BBQ burritos, singling out Reeves to be in charge of pouring some rice into a pan.

And the fans went wild.

“That’s all he’s got to do to get this? Choi remarked at the chorus of screams that went up at Reeves’ work in the kitchen.

One of the funnier moments of the demonstration came when Mailhouse asked Reeves to bend a spoon — a la “The Matrix” — using only his mind.

“Wait,” said Reeves, who was an incredibly good sport throughout the day. “I’m hungry. I can’t do it.”

The group would also use the Culinary Stage’s musical instruments — which are made out of items from the kitchen — to play some music. Reeves was handed a bass-like stringed instrument, which he’d use to earn some major cred with goth fans as he belted out the recognizable rhythm to Bauhaus’s “Bela Lugosi’s Dead.”

After the burritos were folded up properly, the Dogstar guys began throwing them out to the crowd assembled in front of the stage. That led Domrose to call out for Kittle — one of the best receivers in the NFL — who ended up taking the stage with the band.

At that point, the party really got underway as Kittle and Reeves provided an extremely cool photo op — while they did a little dance together — and the burritos just kept right on flying.