On Day Two of the Grateful Dead invasion, the “Summer of Love” spirit was revived, bare feet, dreadlocks and all, for the Excelsior’s 23rd annual “Jerry Day.”
While you won’t be able to find Dead & Company at Golden Gate Park tickets for under $100, Jerry Day on Saturday celebrated the legacy of the Grateful Dead and the band’s founding frontman Jerry Garcia — free of charge.
For the first weekend in August, going back two decades and some change, the Jerry Garcia Amphitheater in McLaren Park has transported San Francisco back to the ‘70s and the peak of Deadhead culture.
For as much as Jerry Day is a Deadhead event, it’s also the Excelsior’s biggest event of the year. Garcia grew up in the Excelsior, at 87 Harrington St., in a typical low-slung family home. In honor of Garcia’s 83rd birthday, the street was renamed Jerry Garcia Street on Aug. 1 with the addition of a commemorative street sign.
“I found out in 1995 that Jerry came from the Excelsior, and I was like, ‘how come nobody knows this?’ We were known for some other characters, but Jerry was more of a positive light,” said the Jerry Day’s founder and organizer, Tom Murphy.
Beginning at 11:30 on Saturday morning, the event picked up quickly with crowds of Deadheads, young and old, ready to trip, see friends and meet others in the community.
The first act at the amphitheater, Peter Rowan, hit the stage and people were quick to get groovin’. There were generations of Deadheads with their spouses, friends, chosen family, kids and grandkids.
While the people danced and bongs were ripped, donation buckets came rolling through the crowd with attendants shouting slogans like “Help keep Jerry Day free!”
Jerry Day relies on city funding, and the organization has been notified that 80 percent of that has been cut for next year. While the event also sells VIP packages to make ends meet — they run $150 and more — public dollars have been integral.
So this year, while celebrating the spirit of the Dead, the event was pulling out all the stops: Selling merchandise and posters, starting a GoFundMe, and peer pressure.
While some of the older revelers in the crowd were reliving their glory days touring with the band, the twentysomethings, referred to as “the kids,” by the hippie veterans, were living it.
“I listened to China Cat Sunflower and I would dance in my room, in the kitchen and all over to it,” said a third-generation kid.
“I saw Dead & Company in Los Angeles in 2019 and I found people who were dancing like me, that I didn’t know was happening.” they added.
“This is beautiful. It’s absolutely incredible. A free show in the park? Everyone is just stoked to be here, stoked to be alive.”
You couldn’t take two steps on Saturday without walking around contorted bodies dancing, many with dirt-stained bare feet and waist-length dreadlocks. Amid a crowd of thousands of hippies dripping with tie-dye were vendors selling shroom chocolate in wicker baskets and smoke accessories in briefcases.
Others sold fan-designed Grateful Dead merch: T-shirts, stickers, magnets and lanyards. A tribe of kids peddled crystals with a sign scribbled on a coloring sheet.
From the sets of 10-minute songs to the white pall of second-hand smoke, it was easy to get lost in the vibes of Jerry Day.
“The best [memory] was I don’t have any memories,” said a twirling 57-year-old Deadhead.
“It was just one continuous thing after another, because every beautiful day was an incredible experience [listening to the music].”
Countercultural spaces in Austin had to suffer regular incursions from deadheads following around the acid addled junkie and his combo. They’d arrive en masse, insinuate themselves as parasites wanting food and accommodation, and only leave when the Dead did. I could not imagine what would be worse, being on acid and having to hear their monotonous music or having to do that around a flock of tripping deadheads.
“No, noooo, hippies, hippies all around me.. They wanna save the Earth, but all they do is smoke pot and smell bad”
–Eric Cartman
Lighten up. These are peaceful people who intend no harm. If you want something to complain about why don’t you do something about the GOP gerrymandering proposed in your state.
You realize that the Grateful Dead stopped touring in 1995, 25 years ago when Garcia died, and that I’d been living in The Mission for 6 years by then, right? I sought refuge in California to escape that increasingly right wing hellhole. I left not a moment too soon. Austin is toast.
Cartman quotes = class, to you? Look what you’ve created here with your endless virtue and wit – you’ve quoted a cartoon that is deliberately obnoxious and self-parodying, except you do so seriously as if to sum up your “point” of ranting about Austin and Deadheads, online.
Bravo, you really have life all figured out.
You sir are a jerk. That being said you know tickets started at 200 bucks a show right? Not the crowd you think. VIP packages werebas much as 10k. Something must be pretty amazing about the Grateful Dead if folks pay that much to see 2 of its remaining members.
‘Out on the road today, I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac
A little voice inside my head said, “Don’t look back, you can never look back”’
I visited the spot in Golden Gate Park next to Hippie Hill where Carlos Santana found his conga player yesterday and strolled along the Haight where I was happy to find the shopping strip still looks psychdelic, and where I was able to buy a THC soda drink. That alone was enough blast from the past for me.