Article Contributed by Gabriel David Barkin
Published on 2026-09-09
Grahame Lesh and Friends | San Francisco, CA | September 7th, 2026 - photos by Gabriel David Barkin
The Golden Gate Free Jam with Grahame Lesh & Friends lived up to its promise on Labor Day in San Francisco. Free music. Free sunshine. Free posters. Friends everywhere. Lots of bathrooms and drinking water (all free, of course). What’s not to love?
The concert featured Lesh on guitar and bass with fellow pickers Scott Law and Garrett Deloian trading licks and Brian Rashap on bass (when Lesh was playing his guitar). Two drum kits side by side featured Danny Luehring and Alex Koford. Holly Bowling and Danny Eisenberg anchored stage right with their keyboards. Elliott Peck sang vocals along with Lesh, Deloian, Law, and Koford. Bowling’s young son Rylan, possibly visible only to a few members of the crowd due to his stature, shredded on air guitar standing next to his mother in the second set.
The show was the musical centerpiece event of “Forever Grateful,” a combination of museum and immersive exhibitions in San Francisco celebrating the legacy and community of the Grateful Dead. The Haight Street Art Center is the host and progenitor of “Forever Grateful,” which includes a collection of artwork, instruments, and memorabilia both at the Center’s Haight Street location and also in Golden Gate Park’s Hall of Flowers. (For more information, visit https://haightstreetart.org/pages/forevergrateful)
Here are ten not-necessarily-top but cool things to know about the Labor Day concert:
1) The event was held at Robin Williams Meadow, which sits right next to Golden Gate Park’s famous Hippie Hill, one of the epicenters of the 1960s countercultural explosion. Before Monday’s concert began, echoes of music from the omnipresent drum circle at the foot of Hippie Hill—which, by some unreliable accounts, seemingly has been going nonstop 24/7 since the 1960s—reverberated throughout the grassy, tree-lined meadow.
2) Grahame Lesh & Friends played two long sets from the bed of a flatbed truck, perhaps the first time that type of stage has been used in this particular part of Golden Gate Park. The Dead and other bands used flatbed truck stages on Haight Street and in the nearby Panhandle section of the park, and Grahame Lesh & Friends (a.k.a. Danny's Live Dead in that instance) did likewise in March this year in the Panhandle. But evidence for a stage like this in what is now Robin Williams Meadow—formerly Sharon Meadow—is lacking.
3) Contrary to the lyrics of “Scarlet Begonias,” the sky on Monday was blue and the sun was yellow. There was not a cloud in sight on the warm Labor Day afternoon.
4) Many luminaries from the wide sphere of the Grateful Dead continuum were in attendance. Grateful Dead roadie “Big Steve” Parish chatted backstage with Betty Cantor-Jackson, the Dead’s longtime live sound engineer. The power couple of longtime Grateful Dead publicist Dennis McNally and photographer Susana Millman relaxed in comfortable lawn chairs in the VIP area. Several close family members of Phil Lesh, Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia were spotted in and around the meadow as well. San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie stopped by for a few moments too.
5) Just a few blocks away at the Hall of Flowers exhibit that is part of “Forever Grateful,” the famous Merry Pranksters’ bus Furthur chilled out and grooved to the vibes. This is the first-ever public exhibition of Furthur, and the proximity of this American treasure deepened the connection of the music in the park to the antecedents of the Dead and the Haight-Ashbury scene of yore.
6) The Haight Street Art Center is raising funds to restore Furthur to the glory it deserves. Read more and donate here.
7) One of Phil Lesh’s Ken Smith basses made a guest appearance in the second set, played by the elder Lesh’s son Grahame for several songs. Deloian played kazoo on “Alligator,” though no reports have emerged confirming whether it was the same kazoo used by Garcia on the 1968 recording.
8) The first letters of the songs in the two main sets spelled out “FOREVER GRATEFUL.” Check it out below.
9) The crowd was a mix of young and old, including many Deadheads who probably saw the Grateful Dead when they played in the Haight, the Panhandle and nearby Kezar Stadium in the 1960s and ’70s. But there were tons of people in attendance who no doubt discovered the band later in its career, and certainly also a number of people who never saw the Grateful Dead—some of whom were born after Jerry Garcia died. And then there were people who were simply wandering through the park on a sunny day, looking for a place to picnic, who stumbled upon the music and joined the crowd.
10) I estimate perhaps 7,500 people were there, though others have guessed more. The concert was also streamed live on Nugs, adding countless thousands to the attendee list for this special event. (See more photos here.)
SET LIST
Set 1
Friend of the Devil
Other One, The
Race Is On, The
Estimated Prophet
Viola Lee Blues
Eyes of the World
Ripple
Set 2
Golden Road, The (to Unlimited Devotion)
Ramble On Rose
Alligator
Truckin'
Eleven, The
Franklin's Tower
Unbroken Chain
Lady with a Fan (Terrapin Station)
Encore
St. Stephen
Cumberland Blues
Box of Rain
