Dead & Company Kick Off Golden Gate Park Run with Billy Strings, Grahame Lesh Sit Ins

Dead & Company kicked off their three-night run at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park last night. The show not only marks the beginning of the ensemble’s official 60th anniversary celebration of the Grateful Dead’s formation but also fell on what would have been Jerry Garcia’s 83rd birthday. Though the Dead have a long history of performances in Golden Gate Park, dating back in the mid-1960s, last night was the first time Dead & Company has performed at the famed Polo Fields.

Billy Strings, one of three celebrity acts confirmed to support Dead & Company this weekend, opened the day with an afternoon set at 4:30pm. In addition to his own originals and adopted covers, Strings nodded to the event with a take on “Shady Grove,” the bluegrass favorite popularized in certain circles by Garcia and David Grisman–who was also Strings’ introduction to this world–and “Thunder,” a latter-day Robert Hunter tune that BK3 wrote music for and Strings reworked after he started playing with members of the Dead.

Trixie Garcia, Jerry’s daughter who often serves as a liaison for his legacy, offered a short introduction before the evening’s headliner, emphasizing the weekend’s family feel. Then, Dead & Company’s set commenced with “Feel Like a Stranger” and moved on to include first set chestnuts Iike Martha Reeves and the Vandellas’ “Dancing in the Streets,” “Tennessee Jed,” “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo,” Johnny Cash’s “Big River” and “Althea.”

At the the start of the band’s second set, Grahame Lesh, who also led his own Heart of Town tribute to the Dead at Pier 48 later in the evening, emerged to help the group through his father Phil’s signature “Box of Rain,” which Dead & Company started playing in 2016 but have only performed sporadically since. He then switched instruments for an energetic “Playing in the Band,” before Dead and Company nodded to their California surroundings with “Estimated Prophet” and teased some Miles Davs during “Eyes of the World.” Following a deep improvisational sequence that included “Terrapin Station” and a “Drums and Space” segment that made use of the low-end sound system the group borrowed from Metallica, Strings returned for an emotional tribute to Garcia in the form of “Wharf Rat”–a tune he also played as his featured selection at the Musicares benefit saluting the Dead in January.

The Dead’s arrangement of Bob Dylan’s “Knocking on Heaven’s Door,” which they played frequently in the late ’80s in 1990s, served as a loan encore; the band played while images of Garcia were projected in black-and-white on the venue screens.

Dead & Company will return to Golden Gate Park tonight.