History

Golden Gate Park is the thousand-acre public park running west from the Haight-Ashbury to the Pacific, and for the San Francisco scene it was the free stage. The Polo Fields and the Panhandle — the narrow strip reaching east toward the neighbourhood — hosted the gatherings the ballrooms could not: the Human Be-In in January 1967, the Summer Solstice happening that June, and an long series of free concerts by the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and Quicksilver, often on a flatbed truck with power run from wherever it could be found. No tickets, no promoter, and frequently no poster — which is why the park is under-represented in a chronicle organised around printed sheets, and why the events that do carry one matter. The free show in the park was the scene's own account of itself, distinct from the paid Friday night at the Fillmore.

Its Place in the Scene

The scene's free stage — Be-Ins, solstice gatherings and unbilled Dead concerts, mostly unpostered and therefore easily lost.

The Facts

Shows at this Venue