On Mon\/7, Grahame Lesh & Friends<\/a> will play the Golden Gate Free Jam!<\/a> at Robin Williams Meadow, a concert capping the opening weekend of Forever Grateful\/Golden Gate Park<\/a>, an immersive exhibition devoted to the Grateful Dead\u2019s music, art, community, and enduring relationship with the city.<\/p>\n Opening Sat\/5 at the County Fair Building and running through Oct. 25, the exhibition is the second chapter of Haight Street Art Center\u2019s two-part Forever Grateful project. Its first installment<\/a> opened on Haight Street in July with hundreds of works spanning the Dead\u2019s history.<\/p>\n The Golden Gate Park edition expands the celebration with original artwork and memorabilia, projections, performances, interactive experiences, and some remarkable pieces of countercultural history, including Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters\u2019 original Furthur bus<\/a> and Jerry Garcia\u2019s BMW.<\/p>\n Lesh\u2019s concert carries the celebration outside and into the park. Grahame Lesh & Friends will perform from a flatbed truck, evoking the spontaneous free concerts that helped define San Francisco\u2019s \u201960s music scene.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople want to have things to do, music to listen to, and people to hang out with,\u201d Lesh says. \u201cAnd if it\u2019s free, all the better. So much is very expensive in this world.\u201d<\/p>\n Lesh, the Marin County singer-songwriter, guitarist, Midnight North cofounder, and son of late Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh, has made free shows something of a mission this year. He played one in the Panhandle in March, performed outside the Love on Haight store, put on another in Michigan, and recently announced an October Colorado Free Jam in Denver.<\/p>\n The Panhandle show, spearheaded by San Francisco drummer Danny Luehring, who will also play with Lesh on Mon\/7, showed him how well the concept could still work.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was a wake-up call that this is a really cool thing we can do, especially with the city\u2019s support,\u201d says Lesh. \u201cJust throw some instruments on the stage and see how many people show up and try to give them a good time.\u201d<\/p>\n Lesh also performed at the July 4 opening of the first Forever Grateful exhibition, though his schedule prevented him from seeing much of it. He\u2019s hoping for another chance in Golden Gate Park.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe before I play, I could sneak around,\u201d Lesh says. \u201cBut I\u2019m excited to see it\u2014that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n The symbolism of a Lesh playing Grateful Dead music for free in a San Francisco park is impossible to miss, though the 39-year-old knows the San Francisco of the \u201960s only through inherited history.<\/p>\n Growing up in Marin, Lesh learned about the city largely through his father. One of the memories that stuck came much later, when father and son played Stern Grove together in 2022.<\/p>\n \u201cHe told me free music in a park in San Francisco is what he always used to love,\u201d Lesh recalls. \u201cI sort of kept that idea with me that my dad, who was 82 at the time, was like, \u2018Oh, this was what it was all about.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Grahame Lesh approaches the Grateful Dead songbook with an emphasis on keeping the music alive in the present.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m trying to play it like myself,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I think that keeps it fresh because it\u2019s how it\u2019s never been played, because I\u2019m a unique human. Hopefully, all the musicians who are with me are doing the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n That approach arrives amid another period of intense interest in the Dead. Lesh credits the band\u2019s 50th and 60th anniversaries, along with Dead & Company\u2019s decade with John Mayer<\/a>, with bringing new people into the community.<\/p>\n Lesh has seen the Dead\u2019s reach extend into some unexpected places. A few months ago, he appeared on Andy Cohen\u2019s \u201cWatch What Happens Live,\u201d<\/a> bringing a long-running family story full circle.<\/p>\n Years ago, Lesh\u2019s mother was watching bonus footage from \u201cThe Real Housewives of New York City\u201d when she recognized a jewelry store near his parents\u2019 former Soho apartment. Then she spotted someone else in the background: Phil Lesh.<\/p>\n The family later met Cohen<\/a>, a longtime Deadhead, at the Dead\u2019s 50th anniversary shows in 2015, though Lesh\u2019s mother never got around to telling him about Phil\u2019s accidental reality-TV cameo. When Grahame finally appeared on \u201cWatch What Happens Live,\u201d she insisted he share the story. Producers tracked down the obscure footage and worked it into the show.<\/p>\n The appearance also introduced Lesh to an audience that had little idea what he did for a living.<\/p>\n \u201cI have heard from so many people since I went on Andy Cohen<\/a>\u2019s show who couldn\u2019t care less what I do most of the time,\u201d says Lesh. \u201cThey\u2019re not coming to my shows. But they\u2019re like, \u2018Oh, now I know who you are and what you do.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n For Lesh, the Dead\u2019s continuing appeal goes well beyond pop-culture cameos.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIn this crazy world, with an overconnection to the digital world, there\u2019s something primal about running away and following the Dead,\u201d Lesh says. \u201cIt\u2019s like going to follow the circus.\u201d<\/p>\n That freedom runs through the music itself, in which musicians are free to play what they want and feel.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that extends to the audience, and everyone is in it together,\u201d says Lesh. \u201cThat communal feeling is really cool and special.\u201d<\/p>\n The community has become especially meaningful to Lesh since his father died in 2024. A week after Phil\u2019s death, Grahame traveled across the country to play a previously scheduled show with the encouragement of his family.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was a heavy night,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Music has since offered a way of maintaining a connection with those who are gone.<\/p>\n \u201cThe music is so joyful, and it\u2019s almost a way to tell jokes to those who have passed and keep the conversation going,\u201d says Lesh. \u201cMusic is such magic that it really does help heal.\u201d<\/p>\n That combination of music and community brings the story back to Golden Gate Park, where Lesh hopes someone with little knowledge of the Dead might wander into Robin Williams Meadow on Mon\/7 and discover what has kept people gathering around these songs for decades.<\/p>\n \u201cI hope that they get a glimpse of the community I grew up in, the one I see every time I play one of these shows,\u201d Lesh says. \u201cThe Deadhead community is really what it\u2019s about. I know it\u2019s an overused word, but the vibes should be good.\u201d<\/p>\n A flatbed truck, a band, a park, and whoever happens to show up. For Lesh, the goal sounds a lot like the San Francisco his father remembered.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re trying to have a really good time in a crazy world,\u201d he says. \u201cI think we, as people putting on a show, have succeeded in building a bridge between people and keeping the community alive for another day.\u201d<\/p>\n GRAHAME LESH & FRIENDS HOST THE GOLDEN GATE FREE JAM! Mon\/7. Robin Williams Meadow, SF. More info here<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Grahame-Lesh-1024x801.jpeg\")
Grahame Lesh<\/p>\n