The Grateful Dead toasts its 60th with concerts at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park

SAN FRANCISCO AP Fans of the Grateful Dead are pouring into San Francisco for three days of concerts and festivities marking the th anniversary of the scruffy jam band that came to embody a city where people wore flowers in their hair and made love not war Dead Company featuring original Grateful Dead members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart will play Golden Gate Park s Polo Field starting Friday with an estimated attendees each day The last time the band played that part of the park was in a free show following the death of concert promoter and longtime Deadhead Bill Graham Certainly times have changed A general admissions ticket for all three days is a shock for numerous longtime fans who remember when a joint cost more than a Dead concert ticket But Deadhead David Aberdeen is thrilled anyway This is the spiritual home of the Grateful Dead declared Aberdeen who works at Amoeba Music in the bohemian flower-powered Haight-Ashbury neighborhood It seems very right to me that they celebrate it in this way Formed in the Grateful Dead is synonymous with San Francisco and its counterculture Members lived in a dirt-cheap Victorian in the Haight and later became a essential part of s Summer of Love That summer eventually soured into bad acid trips and police raids and prompted the band s move to Marin County on the other end of the Golden Gate Bridge But new Deadheads kept cropping up even after iconic guitarist and singer Jerry Garcia s death aided by cover bands and offshoots like Dead Company There are -year-olds who were obviously not even a twinkle in somebody s eyes when Jerry died and these -year-olds get the values of Deadheads disclosed former Grateful Dead publicist and author Dennis McNally Fitting in feeling at home Deadheads can reel off why and how and the moment they fell in love with the music Fans love that no two shows are the same the band plays different songs each time They also embrace the region that comes with a Dead show Sunshine Powers didn t have friends until age when she stepped off a city bus and into the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood I all of a sudden felt like I fit in Or like I didn t have to fit in says Powers now and the owner of tie-dye emporium Love on Haight I don t know which one it was but I know it was like OK Similarly her friend Taylor Swope survived a tough freshman year at a new school with the help of a Grateful Dead mixtape The owner of the Little Hippie gift shop is driving from Brooklyn New York to sell merchandise reconnect with friends and see the shows The sense of I ascertained my people I didn t fit in anywhere else and then I unveiled this and I felt at home So that s a big part of it she declared of the allure Magical live shows Sometimes becoming a Deadhead is a process Thor Cromer had attended several Dead shows but was ambivalent about the hippies That changed on March in Landover Maryland That show whatever it was whatever magic hit he mentioned it was injected right into my brain Cromer who worked for the U S Senate then eventually took time off to follow the band on tour and saw an estimated shows from spring until Garcia s death Cromer now works in machinery and is flying in from Boston to join scores of fellow rail riders who dance in the rows closest to the stage Aberdeen saw his first Dead show in As the only person in his college group with a driver s license he was tapped to drive a crowded VW Bug from Antioch College in Yellow Springs Ohio to Syracuse New York I thought it was pretty weird he announced But I liked it He fell in love the following summer when the Dead played a venue near his college Aberdeen remembers rain pouring down in the middle of the show and a giant rainbow appearing over the band when they returned for their second act They played Comes a Time a rarely played Garcia ballad There is a lot of excitement and there will be a lot of people here Aberdeen stated Who knows when we ll have an opportunity to get together like this again Fans were able to see Dead Company in Las Vegas earlier this year but no new dates have been reported Guitarist Bob Weir is and drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann are and respectively Besides Garcia founding members Ron Pigpen McKernan on keyboards died in and bassist Phil Lesh died last year at age Multiple events planned for Dead s th Mayor Daniel Lurie who is not a Deadhead but counts Sugar Magnolia as his favorite Dead song is overjoyed at the economic boost as San Francisco recovers from pandemic-related hits to its tech and tourism sectors They are the reason why so a multitude of people know and love San Francisco he revealed The weekend features parties shows and celebrations throughout the city Grahame Lesh Friends will perform three nights starting Thursday Lesh is the son of Phil Lesh On Friday which would have been Garcia s rd birthday administrators will rename a street after the San Francisco native On Saturday visitors can celebrate the city s annual Jerry Day at the Jerry Garcia Amphitheater located in a park near Garcia s childhood home Source