Meet You By The Witness Tree: Filial Musings From GD60 [Photos/Videos]

One of the most rewarding aspects of being a Deadhead is the cross-generational camaraderie that defines the communal vibration.

For me, it began with my sister, thirteen-plus years my senior, who chaperoned my first show at the Philadelphia Spectrum in March 1992, the dawn the Grateful Dead‘s final act.

I spent the next few years while Jerry Garcia was still singing us sweet songs catching as many shows as my high school life would allow, steadily soaking in tales of tours gone by, dubbing tapes, devouring books and magazines, and getting schooled by elders on the ways and means of this subversive, anachronistic underworld still so new to me. Despite the fact that I found the Dead during the band’s swan song era, it’s safe to say those few years—and the connections I made because of them—redirected the trajectory of my journey on this rock.

In August 1995, after thirty glorious years on the road to unlimited devotion, Grateful Dead co-founder/de-facto leader Jerry Garcia died at age 53. His loss, while perhaps not surprising given his lifestyle, impacted the Deadhead community like a megaton bomb. But while most outsiders predicted that Grateful Dead phenomenon would fade into the annals of music history, quite the opposite has taken place in the thirty years that followed. In spite of fly-by-night pop culture trends, an entire cottage industry has developed around this kaleidoscopic cultural institution and what it represents: the greatest American songbook.

Though some retired, checked out, or grew up, many Deadheads forged onward, enjoying various reformations and side projects with members of the Grateful Dead, plus copious tribute bands large and small dotting America from coast to coast. Soon came traveling festivals, then paradise getaways, plus hundreds of live Dead releases, annual movie theater meet-ups, and enough merchandising the make a pro sports team raise its eyebrows.

A generation-plus on down the number line, enthusiastic and informed fans of the Dead can be found in every layer of society, regardless of age, geography, or tax bracket. Part of this continued presence in the zeitgeist can be attributed to Dead & Company. For the past decade, Grateful Dead veterans Bob Weir and Mickey Hart (plus Billy Kreutzmann for several years) have maintained the live project alongside John Mayer, Oteil Burbridge, and Jeff Chimenti (plus Jay Lane in recent years), keeping the flame burning bright into the sixth decade of Deadhead existence. If the groups of jubilant, hardcore twenty-somethings dancing feverishly in front of me all weekend at Golden Gate Park earlier this month were any indication, the Dead & Company mission was most certainly accomplished. Grateful Dead music is still very much alive.

[Photo: Bob Minkin via Dead & Company – Young fans attend Dead & Company at Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA, August 2025]

As the 60th anniversary of the Grateful Dead’s formation approached—and the tailwind of GD bassist/co-founder Phil Lesh in October 2024—Dead & Company sought to gather the tribe together once again to commemorate sixty years of Grateful Dead music. This time, the powers that be chose a deeply significant location for the festivities: the Golden Gate Park’s Polo Fields, site of the famed Human Be-In during 1967’s Summer of Love, a landmark cultural convergence at which the Grateful Dead performed.

Akin to GD50 in Chicago, a Super Bowl week-like whirlwind of GD-oriented programming appeared: afterparties, exhibits and activities came to life all over the city, surrounding the three main concerts in the park.

The intergenerational exchanges and treasured traditions shared within these sacred songs hit the hardest as the weekend ensued, dealing heroic doses of the spiritual medicine we so deeply desire by way of the songs of the Dead. With Garcia long gone, Phil’s recent transition, and Bobby and Mickey (and Billy, who did not partake in the weekend’s festivities) playing the back nine in the attics of their lives, an element of mortality—if not finality—hung in the air San Francisco air like fog, hushed whispers among the souls communing around the city. Conversely, with a bold infusion of younger players and integral contributors to the scene, the future simultaneously felt bright and beautiful at the conclusion of the celebration.

While some fans lament how the years and miles reveal themselves within the musical performances of the aging members of Dead & Company, they were far from the only game in town over GD60 weekend. From Thursday through Saturday, there was also a vibrant, electrifying, youthful thump pulsating from a waterfront warehouse on the San Francisco Bay.

Grahame Lesh & Friends: The Heart of Town – San Francisco, CA – Set One – 7/31/25

[Video: Ted Silverman AKA TedToob]

This cross-pollinating celebration came courtesy of Phil’s son Grahame Lesh, who helmed a trio of adjacent dream-team throw-downs delightfully billed as The Heart of Town. A veritable murderer’s row of multi-generational jam royalty coalesced in ceremonial fashion to explore all things Garcia and Grateful Dead for three silky, silky, crazy, crazy nights, with the ginger ninja Grahame Lesh confidently at the helm throughout.

Throughout the three shows, Grahame embraced the famously fearless and adventurous spirit of a quarter-century of Phil & Friends combinations. At Thursday’s kickoff, he brought in Phil and Garcia’s peers like Peter Rowan, Pete Sears, Roger McNamee, and even the great Stephen Stills. Organist Melvin Seals brought along his current version of JGB. The material oscillated from classic Dead joints, to cutty Old & In The Way rarities, to the gospel-ized glory of late-era Jerry Garcia Band.

Across the constantly-mutating collectives, where musicians shuffled on and offstage in different combos, Grahame (guitar, vocals) leaned on Phil’s longtime tech Brian Rashap for bass guitar and stage production duties, as well as members of his own band, Midnight North. Longtime collaborator Eric Krasno, who worked extensively with the late GD bassist, had a prominent role across the three nights. Phil’s various Friends like Jennifer Hartswick, Natalie Cressman, John Medeski, Robert Randolph, Karl Denson, Jackie Greene, Dan “LEBO” Lebowitz, Tom Hamilton, Holly Bowling, Steve Molitz, Mikaela Davis, and numerous others paid proper tribute with poignant portraits in song and emotion.

Grahame Lesh & Friends: The Heart of Town – San Francisco, CA – Set Two – 8/2/25

[Video: Ted Silverman AKA TedToob]

Lettuce’s Erick “Jesus” Coomes and Adam Deitch, Dumpstaphunk’s Ivan Neville and Tony Hall, Neal Francis, The Disco Biscuits’ Aron Magner, Kanika Moore, and more funky faces were welcomed into the grateful family bosom by way of imaginative interpolations of the mighty GD canon. With a nod to the future, Lesh was keen to incorporate a handful of the next generation’s most exciting talents including, but not limited to, Eggy’s Jake Brownstein, Karina Rykman, Sam Grisman (son of Garcia’s favorite acoustic foil, David Grisman), Duane Betts, Goose’s Cotter Ellis and Trevor Weeks, and beyond.

All three Heart of Town get-downs caught lightning in a bottle, brimming with buoyant improvisational mosaics that would make Garcia proud and euphoric Dead anthems explored in the loving, limitless spirit of Phil Lesh.

With no songs barred and nothing off limits [see: Saturday’s “France“], the creative contingents leaned into their curiosities across a wide swath of familial topography. Those exhilarating shows at Pier 48 would have been more than enough to cement Grahame Lesh’s presence co-captaining the contemporary Dead scene for the foreseeable future, but the kid had a little more up his sleeve for the big weekend shebang.

Lesh was also invited to sit in with Dead & Company on bass and vocals during all three of their shows at Golden Gate Park, making for a touching, thrilling, filial connection that injected love in the dream, further tugged at the heartstrings, and sung us all the way back home.

Dead & Company w/ Grahame Lesh – “Box of Rain” – 8/1/25
[Video: Todd Norris]

Alternately wielding two of his father’s instruments—the famed Big Brown and a custom Doug Irwin—Grahame took the stage with Bobby, Mickey, Mayer, Jay Lane, and Jeff Chimenti on Friday for an emotional sledgehammer of a second set opener, “Box of Rain”. A mourning song Phil and Robert Hunter wrote about Lesh’s own father who was dying at the time, Grahame’s reading was a poignant extension of that righteous original intention. He stuck around to jam “Playin’ in the Band” before heading out to his own Friday performance at The Heart of Town. On Saturday, Grahame returned to the stage with Dead & Co for a raucous rip through the embryonic “St. Stephen” (complete with “The Eleven” teases), calling back to the lysergic days of Primal Dead that took place on those very same hallowed grounds.

Sunday’s Grahame sit-in, however, was the one that resonated most with me. Appearing after an extended guest spot by GD60/Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio mid-second set for John Mayer’s gripping take on vulnerable Robbie Robertson original “Broken Arrow”, which Phil sang live with the Dead for several years. The stirring expression of gravity and grief bowled us over in the field. Shortly thereafter, Lesh returned for some joyful dueling basses with Oteil Burbridge on a rollicking “Cumberland Blues”.

It’s difficult to convey just how gratifying it was to have Phil’s son so intimately involved in this grandiose event, despite the fact his father never performed with Dead & Company.

Dead & Company w/ Grahame Lesh – “Broken Arrow” (Robbie Robertson) – 8/3/25

Many fans lament the extreme prices attached to most Dead & Company endeavors, and it initially appeared that this weekend would only pour kerosene on that inferno. One must acknowledge the commodification of popular music and the concert business in general, all-consuming consumerism coming at the most dedicated fan from every imaginable direction. Sadly, Dead & Company are far from immune to such industry trends, if not at the forefront of these modern-day, multifaceted revenue streams.

While I’ve never been a huge devotee to this particular project, none of that remotely mattered during GD60, as it was natural to get swept up in the fervor that took over the metropolitan Bay Area for those few days. While there is certainly plenty to fret about in an increasingly dystopian default world, for one long weekend in San Francisco, everybody was dancin’ and grateful for another rainbow full of sound high-steppin’ back into town.

Dead & Company w/ Billy Strings – “Wharf Rat” – 8/1/25

[Video: Todd Norris]

Furthermore, the opening acts for Golden Gate were just exactly perfect. Each one delivered unto the Deadhead congregation both a Polaroid of themselves in this moment and a message of reverence and respect for the godfathers of la cosa nostra.

When Billy Strings emerged with Dead & Co on Friday, in the deep-second-set aftermath of a harrowing “Space”, the entire crowd gasped in anticipation of the forthcoming coronation. Billy, who has been open about his own drug abuse and recovery, summoned something extra to render a riveting “Wharf Rat”—a love song, a tale of a wanderer finding sobriety, a ballad of triumph over trial and tribulation. On Garcia’s 83rd birthday, in front of a crowd 60,000 strong, this young man dug deep within himself and inhabited the protagonist August West with humility and grace for a scintillating reading of this timeless tome—a moment nobody present will soon, if ever, forget.

On Saturday, country-rock rebel Sturgill Simpson similarly understood the assignment and aced the exam, introducing Deadheads to his particular brand of Kentucky bourbon-soaked, full-tilt boogie before jumping in with Dead & Co to close out the headliners’ first frame. Sturdily backed by the Dead & Company foundation, Johnny Blue Skies’ grizzly, gripping interpolation of Bonnie Dobson’s 1961 post-apocalyptic, anti-nuke anthem “Morning Dew”—a song Garcia made his own for the majority of the Grateful Dead arc—triggered thousands of watery eyes and slacked jaws. Once again, the guest du jour climbed all the way inside of a beloved tune and reimagined it with integrity and authenticity.

Dead & Company w/ Sturgill Simpson – “Morning Dew” – 8/2/25

[Video: The Zalewski Law Firm]

And then, there was Trey. Under clear, mid-afternoon skies on sacred Sunday, the Phish frontman, an essential cog in the Fare The Well wheel ten years prior, recounted a personal tale of how Jerry and Dead first cracked Trey Anastasio open in New Haven, CT circa 1981. Then, he and the rest of Trey Anastasio Band dug into Garcia gospel with a faithful, soul-quenching reading of the Jerry Garcia Band gem “Mission in the Rain”—a song various eras of JGB played close to 250 times but the Dead only touched five. The stunning gesture was a medicinal balm that eased every last soul swaying, sobbing, singing in the San Francisco sun.

Trey’s homage struck the perfect tone as he reflected on Garcia’s outsized influence from the place where it all began. As Garcia once explained of “Mission in the Rain” during a 1979 radio interview on Philadelphia’s WMMR, “It’s about me in San Francisco, that’s what it’s about. It’s as close to autobiographical as it’s possible for me to get working with another guy. [Lyricist Robert] Hunter and I both grew up around the Bay Area, and lived in San Francisco, and Hunter is able sometimes to write what I would say, you know what I mean? If it were possible for me to say something in that medium. Every once in a while he’s able to do it for me. So that’s one of those songs where it’s very personal. It’s him speaking about me. So when I do the song, for me it’s a very personal thing. I’m talking about myself, my life.”

As most of you reading this are likely aware, Trey returned to the stage at the top of Dead & Company’s sixth and final frame of the weekend for a sensational “Scarlet Begonias” > “Fire on the Mountain”, an instant classic that immediately became canonical. The long-awaited Mayer/Anastasio bromance bloomed quickly as these two generation-defining recruits aligned their unique six-string linguistics for a riveting conversation on one of the most adaptable topics in the Dead lexicon. Speaking as someone who was forced to miss Fare Thee Well, this cosmic convergence was pure deliverance of the highest and most righteous order.

Dead & Company w/ Trey Anastasio – “Scarlet Begonias” > “Fire on the Mountain” – 8/2/25

[Video: Todd Norris]

Sure, it remains a bit strange to see them up there without Kreutzmann, though Bill the Drummer did send in a congratulatory video message from Hawaii that was aired during an intermission. The Dead & Company performances boasted supreme highs, crucial collaborations, ceremonial torch-passings, and chilling climaxes—with occasional meandering passages, and a few concerning struggles from our weary cowboy-shaman Bob Weir.

Each evening, after the main events had run their course, a unified field spilled out into a plethora of bacchanals that dotted the Bay til the wee hours of the night. From Golden Gate Park to the Heart of Town to a slew of points between, a certain undeniable, collective energy and fuzzy togetherness permeated the roughly one hundred hours of celebration in San Francisco, connecting us all through the magic, music, and moment in a way I’m not sure I’ve experienced before.

The best part of the whole GD60 experience was that while the celebration left me feeling proud of the OGs who blazed the trail. I came away both optimistic and excited for the future of this monumental music that’s so precious to us all. It’s crystal clear: we’re bound to cover just a little more ground. In fact, I believe it all can be summed up by another perfect Hunter stanza:

“If all you got to live for is what you left behind, Take yourself a powder charge and seal that silver mine.”

Below, check out photo galleries from Dead & Company at Golden Gate Park and The Heart of Town at Pier 48.

words: B.Getz