Sometimes the joy is in the journey. After much advance fanfare and ballyhoo, the Grateful Dead’s 60th anniversary celebration (GD60) was upon us, and on August 1, while the destination was a large-scale concert in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park by Dead & Company and Billy Strings, the journey to get there was a literal walk in the park (of course, for many, “the journey” included flights and/or long drives to get to San Francisco). Grand old Golden Gate Park provided a natural sanctuary and comfort zone, wrapping its naturally air-conditioned arms around the 60,000 or so music fans. To get to the music venue, Golden Gate Park’s vast Polo Field, most attendees took the 15-minute park stroll along JFK Promenade between the enormous, officially sanctioned Shakedown Street craft-vending area and the show itself. In addition, many folks walked into the park at one end, from the western edge of Haight Street, which hosted plenty of weekend GD-related events, and took the 2.6-mile walking journey all the way, past Shakedown Street to the Polo Field.
Indeed, by the end of the day, Dead & Company and Billy Strings and his band delivered a five-hour-plus combined performance on what would have been Grateful Dead patriarch Jerry Garcia’s 83rd birthday. The musical content of the day included the typically superb musicianship of Strings and his sidemen, and two Dead & Company sets of varying tenacity and vitality. In addition to the big-stage music, organizers laid out a pleasing, wide variety of sideshows within the Polo Field (detailed later in this piece).
After a quick audience-welcome from Trixie Garcia, daughter of Jerry and Carolyn (Mountain Girl) Garcia, Strings’ traditional-meets-contemporary-meets-jamming bluegrass that has catapulted him to superstardom over the past several years, took over and was on point throughout the 75-minute set. While many in the audience were obviously well-versed fans who sang along with every song, the 32-year-old Strings offered, after greeting the assemblage with a hearty “Hooowwwwdy!”, an especially accessible set list for newcomers. Strings (guitar/vocals), along with Billy Failing (banjo), Alex Hargreaves (fiddle), Jarrod Walker (mandolin), and Royal Masat (bass), all of whom delivered splendid, dexterous, frenetic fingerpicking, opened with their recent single, “Gild the Lily.” Their set offered three traditional acoustic songs connected to Garcia. “Shady Grove” was the title track of a Garcia/David Grisman project; “Oh the Wind and Rain” appeared on Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band’s 1988 album, “Almost Acoustic”; and “Pig in a Pen” was featured on the influential “Old & In the Way” album, on which Garcia, Vassar Clements, Peter Rowan, David Nelson, and John Kahn raised the national awareness of the bluegrass genre in the mid-’70s.
Other traditional songs and covers from Strings, who told the crowd, “We’re happy to be bringing a little bluegrass to the party,” included “Sally Johnson,” “If Your Hair’s Too Long (There’s Sin in Your Heart)” – with band members vocalizing around one microphone, “Harbor of Love” (Stanley Brothers), and “Thunder,” penned by the late Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter. Strings’ set also included his (and Don Julin’s) oft-played favorite, “Dust in a Baggie,” as well as “Hellbender,” “Red Daisy,” and jammed-out “Away From the Mire.”
Following Strings’ set, and without critiquing and dissecting the specific Dead & Company set lists, to which there will always be a multitude of opinions depending on one’s personal preferences, the band performed two sets over about 3½ hours, including a set break. Featuring Bob Weir, John Mayer, Mickey Hart, Jeff Chimenti, Oteil Burbridge, and Jay Lane, the band, after an undeniable slow start, lifted their energy in the second set, though Weir was not on top of his game vocally all evening, even considering his age, 77.
Special moments included a second-set opener highlighted by an unannounced appearance by the late Phil Lesh’s son, Grahame, who sang his dad’s beloved “Box of Rain” while strumming dad’s so-called “Big Brown Bass,” and remained on stage during “Playing in the Band,” before the band moved on to an “Estimated Prophet” / “Eyes of the World” combo, then “Terrapin Station.” Perhaps the high point of the show was a post-drums ’n’ space “Wharf Rat,” during which Billy Strings guested – singing the vocals and jamming with Mayer and the rest of the fellas. Following “Wharf Rat,” a “Not Fade Away” ended the set, and an encore of Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” reverberated through the air as the multitude started to depart into Golden Gate Park, the city of San Francisco at-large, and beyond.
Fun and meaningful sideshows within the concert grounds added to the atmosphere and character of the day, and the event’s integration with Golden Gate Park. Participation Row, “a groundbreaking social action village that has transformed the way fans experience concerts and engage with causes,” according to HeadCount, invited attendees to learn more about and have one-on-one conversations with several nonprofits. In all, Participation Row’s presence over the past 10 years has raised “more than $16 million by the band for nonprofits tackling issues from climate action to voter engagement,” HeadCount stated.
Participation Row participants included: 1) HeadCount (voter registration), 2) REVERB (tackling environmental and social issues), 3) Backline (tackling mental health and wellness resources for professional musicians and their families), 4) Jerry Garcia Foundation (“supporting environmental, artistic, and humanitarian causes through the beauty of music and art”), 5) Owsley Stanley Foundation (enabling the digitization, preservation, and release of Owsley’s Sonic Journals), 6) Rainforest Action Network (protecting and celebrating “healthy forests, a stable climate, and wild biodiversity”), 7) Rex Foundation (helping secure a healthy environment, promoting individuality in the arts, providing support to critical and necessary social services, and more), 8) Sweet Relief Musicians Fund (providing “financial assistance to all types of career musicians and music industry workers who are struggling to make ends meet”), 9) Sweetwater Music Hall (Marin County music venue), 10) WhyHunger (supporting “communities in taking control of their own food systems and ending hunger”), and 11) Wharf Rats (supporting other concertgoers who choose to live drug-free, like themselves).
The concert also featured Grass Lands, which had an onsite “sales and consumption experience,” and encouraged discussions with growers from the Emerald Triangle (Northern California’s Humboldt, Trinity, and Mendocino counties). In addition to the Haight Street Arts Center exhibition, which featured posters from Mickey Hart’s current Art at the Edge of Magic show, Grass Lands included Jerry’s Joint, Shakedown, Raw Garden, The Head Shop, The Seed Vault, and Humboldt Family Farms, some of which included two or more cannabis vendors within, and many of which offered for sale (for those 21-plus) pre-rolls, edibles, vapes, and flowers.
In addition, a small stage with a uniquely decorated lawn area utilized a stage-screen to beam the show to those who’d rather sit on a hill with a small amount of people, rather than the general body of the Polo Field and its 60,000 souls.
The city of San Francisco was immersed all weekend in celebrations of Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead. On the afternoon of Aug. 1, for instance, on Haight Street at the edge of Golden Gate Park, O'Reilly's Pub, which offered several shows over the weekend, presented a trio of Scott Guberman (Phil Lesh & Friends, The Gilmour Project, on keyboard/vocals), Alex Jordan (Phil Lesh & Friends, Midnight North, solo material, on guitar/vocals), and Jerry Saracini (Forgotten Space, Rosebud, Who’s Best, on congas). Their spirited performance included “Not Fade Away,” “Cold Rain & Snow,” “Scarlet Begonias,” “Fire on the Mountain,” “Morning Dew,” “Iko Iko,” and “Ripple.” Also, on the morning of Aug. 1, the one-block-long Harrington Street in south San Francisco, the street that was Garcia’s boyhood home, was updated to Jerry Garcia Street, with Mayor Daniel Lurie and Trixie Garcia in attendance.
The Grateful Dead themselves are known to have performed in Golden Gate Park in 1966–’67, many times for free, and many before Mickey Hart joined the band in September 1967. According to “Deadbase,” they played in the park on Oct. 6 and Oct. 16, 1966, as well as Jan. 1, April 9, June 21, and Aug. 28, 1967. Also notable, along with the Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother & the Holding Company, and speakers such as Ram Dass, Allen Ginsberg, and Timothy Leary, the Grateful Dead performed at the Human Be-In, on the Polo Field on Jan. 14, 1967. The Grateful Dead and the Airplane also performed at the Polo Field on May 7, 1969. In addition, two large memorial events took place there. One, on Nov. 3, 1991, honored Bay Area concert promoter Bill Graham, with the Grateful Dead and others, and on Aug. 13, 1995, for the Jerry Garcia memorial concert, which mainly featured speakers and tributes rather than musical performances.
Aug. 1. Billy Strings: Gild the Lily, Dust in a Baggie, Sally Johnson, Shady Grove, Hellbender, Away From the Mire, If Your Hair's Too Long (There's Sin in Your Heart), Pig in a Pen, Red Daisy, Harbor of Love, California Sober, Oh the Wind and Rain, Thunder
Aug. 1. Dead & Company: Set 1 - Feel Like a Stranger, Dancing in the Street, Tennessee Jed, Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo, Big River, Althea. Set 2: Box of Rain, Playing in the Band, Estimated Prophet, Eyes of the World, Terrapin Station, Drums, Space, Wharf Rat, Not Fade Away. Encore: Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.
