Dead & Company to play Golden Gate Park show to commemorate Grateful Dead’s 60th anniversary
The concerts, according to Mayor Lurie’s office, are expected to draw up to 60,000 people a day.
The Grateful Dead, or at least its surviving members, will return to Golden Gate Park this summer to commemorate the iconic band’s 60th anniversary. On Monday, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie announced that Dead & Company will be playing three ticketed shows at the Golden Gate Park Polo Fields on Aug. 1, 2 and 3.
Formed in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood in the mid-60s, the Grateful Dead became synonymous with the city’s psychedelic “Summer of Love” era. While many of the band’s contemporaries, like Big Brother and the Holding Company and Quicksilver Messenger Service, faded away by the early-70s, the Dead persisted.
Touring on into the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, the Grateful Dead spawned legions of “Dead Heads” who would follow the band from gig to gig, creating a kind of hippie carnival festival around the group.
Following the deaths of founding guitarist Jerry Garcia, the band toured as The Other Ones and later The Dead. The current incarnation, Dead & Company, got underway in 2015 and is led by original singer/guitarist Bob Weir and long-time drummer Mickey Hart.
Guitarist John Mayer is also a regular member of the band’s lineup.
Founding drummer Bill Kreutzmann left the group in 2023.
The proposal for this summer’s concerts will go before the Recreation and Parks Commission on Thursday. If approved, the concert series will be presented by Another Planet Entertainment and co-produced with Live Nation in partnership with SF Rec and Parks.
The concerts, according to Mayor Lurie’s office, are expected to draw up to 60,000 people a day. A three-day concert event featuring Dead & Company in 2023 generated $31 million in local economic activity, according to the mayor’s office.