There will indeed be a pay-per-view livestream of the sold-out Dead & Company shows August 1-3 at Golden Gate Park, and anyone worldwide can tune in for both the opening acts and the 60th anniversary of the Grateful Dead performances.

Ever since we learned that Dead & Company would be playing Golden Gate Park on August 1-3, the burning question among Deadheads who could not afford those $635 tickets was are they going to livestream the three shows online? After all, there was a good, affordable livestream when they played Oracle Park in 2023. But this year, less than ten days out, all we had heard was that there’s going to be an IMAX screening in movie theaters of just Sunday night’s show, a one-show-only deal that is underwhelming to fans nationwide who do not have an IMAX theater within hundreds of miles of where they live.  

But on Wednesday morning, the news just broke that there will be a pay-per-view livestream of all three Dead & Company shows from Golden Gate Park, and it will be available worldwide. You can buy single-night shows, or all three shows as a package, plus you get the full sets from each show’s opening band. That’s nearly six hours of music each night, all to enjoy from the comfort of your own home and trusty Whip-It dispenser.

The broadcast is being handled by the subscription live music streaming service Nugs, who also brought us that 2023 Oracle Park livestream. Single-night shows are $39.99 for an HD broadcast ($49.99 for 4K), or the whole three-night bundle for $99.99 in HD ($129.99 for 4K).

“Each night you can watch three sets of music, the openers and presumably the two Dead & Company sets,” Nugs founder and CEO Brad Serling tells SFist.

As a reminder, those opening acts are Billy Strings (Friday, August 1), Sturgill “Johnny Blue Skies” Simpson (Saturday, August 2), and the Trey Anastasio Band (Sunday, August 3). Each opening act is expected to start their set around 4 pm PT on their given day.

I personally bought and watched that Nugs Oracle Park livestream 2023, and it was a technically excellent and very well-edited broadcast. There were unforgettable segments with the surprise Sunday night drone show, and the visual sets they offered during a little thing we call “Space.”

“The same team will be shooting the Golden Gate Park shows,” according to Serling.

The pay-per-view also buys you 60 days of Nugs All-Access, a giant vault packed with full Dead & Company concerts, rare Grateful Dead archives, plus recent shows from the Bruce Springsteen and Metallica tours, and a number of “exclusive live performances from the Dead’s extended musical family.”

This all grew from Serling’s exhaustive collection of live Grateful Dead bootleg cassettes that he was putting out in the 1990s.

“I started Nugs in the 90s as a way to share my Grateful Dead tapes,” he tells us. “That became so popular that the Grateful Dead called me up and said that they either needed to shut me down or go into business with me. So they ended up hiring me.”

That led to the webcast platform LivePhish.com, and now the larger Nugs, over the course of 25 years. “It grew from there,” Serling says. “We signed Metallica. We signed Bruce Springsteen. We signed Pearljam. We’ve done every iteration of the Dead, post-Jerry.”

And speaking of the Dead post-Jerry, we had another burning question for Serling. Will John Mayer be playing in the Jerry Garcia role at these upcoming Dead & Company Golden Gate Park shows? It turns out that yes, he will.

“John Mayer is Dead & Company, along with Bobby and Mickey, of course,” he tells us. “That’s not a secret or a surprise or anything.”

Related: Muni Is Truckin’ Grateful Dead-Themed Buses for Next Weekend’s Big Dead & Co. Concerts [SFist]

Image: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - JANUARY 31: (L-R) John Mayer and Jay Lane of Dead & Company, and Honorees Bob Weir and Mickey Hart of Dead & Company and of the Grateful Dead perform onstage during the 2025 MusiCares Person of the Year Honoring The Grateful Dead at Los Angeles Convention Center on January 31, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images)

Want to see Shannon and the Clams, Cherry Glazerr, Y La Bamba, and Sheila E. and the E-Train — for free? Now you can.

Organizers announced this week that the free outdoor concert series held at Jerry Garcia Amphitheater in SF's McLaren Park is returning for its third year — with an extra show for even more chances to see local musicians and performers.

The series, known as “Due South,” is produced by the San Francisco Parks Alliance and Noise Pop, in partnership with the SF Recreation and Park Department. It was resurrected last year after a two-year pandemic hiatus, according the SF Standard, for a three-show series.

This year, the organizers are expanding the series with a fourth show. The concerts will run once a month on Saturday afternoons starting at the end of July, and Oakland’s own garage punk band Shannon and the Clams kicking things off onstage Saturday, July 29, with local rhythmic musician James Wavey opening, according to the organizers' website.

August 26’s lineup will feature L.A.-based indie rock band Cherry Glazerr, rock duo Momma, and Oakland-based multi-genre afro-futurist artist King Isis, per SFGATE.

September 16 will have performances from Portland-based Latin experimental group Y La Bamba, local solo artist Marinero, and SF-based Loco Bloco, an Afro-Latino performance group throughout the day.

And to round it off, October 7 will have Bay Area-based Grammy-nominated R&B group Sheila E. and the E-Train, plus Satya, Oakland-based soul and R&B musician.

The event will be free and take place each Saturday from 2 to 6 p.m. RSVPs are reportedly encouraged, and you can also upgrade for better seating with proceeds going to support SF parks. Plus, you’ll be able to grab food from local food trucks and vendors.

As the Stern Grove Festival draws to a close at the end of the summer, the McLaren Park shows are just beginning.

Image via SF Parks Alliance.

An SF Johnny Cash concert from 1968, recorded just one week before the release of his landmark Folsom Prison album, has been digitally restored and released online by the son of famed Grateful Dead roadie Owsley “Bear” Stanley.

On the night of April 24, 1968, Johnny Cash's career was about to soar to incredible new heights, though he probably did not know this. His live album At Folsom Prison was about to be released the following week, and would go triple-platinum, revive his career, and become his best-selling non-compilation album ever released. He had just kicked the prescription pill habit, and his wife of just two months, June Carter, would be joining him onstage to perform a concert in San Francisco at a venue called the Carousel Ballroom (it’s now SVN West, and at one point was known as The Fillmore West). According to KPIX, “It was a Wednesday night and the suggested ticket price was $3.”

Why is this news? Because that April 24, 1968 San Francisco Johnny Cash concert has just been digitally remastered and released online for free, and it's never been publicly heard before.

SFist is embedding some of our favorite tracks, but you can listen to the full Johnny Cash At The Carousel Ballroom album for free, with all 28 tracks exactly as Johnny played them that April 1968 night. You get all the stage chatter, and you hear Johnny declare “This is my little wife, June Carter Cash,” and they launch into Track 16, “Jackson.”

Cash’s surviving family is thrilled with the recording. “I knew there was something specifically different about this show in particular,” the couple’s only child John Carter Cash told KPIX. “It sets my father’s voice apart. I believe it’s probably just as close to what it really would have been like if you were in the room that night.”

The vintage recordings are from the vault of Grateful Dead sound man and infamous LSD manufacturer Owsley “Bear” Stanley. These recordings have not been publicly released before, but Stanley’s son, veterinarian Dr. Starfinder Stanley (did we mention his dad did a great deal of LSD?), has been digitally restoring and re-releasing many of the secret gems from his father’s vault.

“We like to call it a time machine, because it really transports at least your ears back to those shows,” the junior Stanley told KPIX. “It’s something that we just can’t let evaporate. Unfortunately, reel-to-reel tapes are little iron oxide particles glued to plastic. It falls apart. It deteriorates.”

The recording has also been released as the full album Johnny Cash – At the Carousel Ballroom, available on CD and vinyl.

Related: Someone Recorded a Live Album At SF County Jail [SFist]

CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 1969: Married country singers Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash pose for a portrait at an event in September 1969 in California. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

We're never sure how to write about music, especially tunes and ditties we dig. In Stephen Sondheim's (brilliant) Finishing The Hat, the composer accuses all music writers (save for a couple of NYT scribes) of being musically illiterate. Who are we to argue? And with that, you should check out tonight's Mammoth Life's record release party in the Mission. The only thing we can succinctly tell you about them is that we listened to their latest self-titled effort at recent dinner party and we thoroughly enjoyed them.

How's that for music criticism?

Giggle Party, Animal Friend, and Li Xi, while DJ Neil Martinson mans the decks.

Show starts at 9 p.m. Be there.

Brick & Mortar Music Hall 1710 Mission (at Division), S.F.
$8
Doors: 8 pm / Show: 9 pm

The roster for this year's 2013 Treasure Island Music Festival was announced today. Included in this year's lineup are Beck and (as SFist already pointed out yesterday) Animal Collective, just to name a few.

Below, the entire list of aural talent appearing.

ATOMS FOR PEACE
BECK
ANIMAL COLLECTIVE
MAJOR LAZER
JAMES BLAKE
LITTLE DRAGON
SLEIGH BELLS
PHANTOGRAM
STRFKR
HOLY GHOST!
JAPANDROIDS
TRICKY
REAL ESTATE
DISCLOSURE
LORD HURON
DJ FALCON
HAIM
PALMA VIOLETS
POOLSIDE
ADULT.
CAYUCAS
ROBERT DELONG
IO ECHO
GIRAFFAGE
DEEP SEA DIVER
ANTWON

Unofficially, this year's theme is "Stop Wearing Native American Garb or Tennis Headbands to Music Festivals." Tickets run between $130-$275.

Locally-based talent Thao Nguyen and her band the Get Down Stay Down have an indie sound that NPR's All Songs considered called “insanely infectious [and] utterly charming," and SPIN describes as "offbeat, upbeat, folk-tinged guitar pop." The group released a shiny new album yesterday, We The Common, and they're inviting the city to celebrate with a free show at Amoeba SF tonight.

Here's a taste of what Thao & the Get Down Stay Down have on tap (you can listen to the whole album over at NPR).

6pm at Amoeba Music, 1855 Haight Street.
[Amoeba Music]

Take this one with a dotcom bubble-sized grain of salt: various sources are reporting that Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning (yes, the same gentlemen who brought you the original Napster) are planning a secret concert in San Francisco tonight featuring Snoop Dogg, The Killers, Jane's Addiction and Kaskade to celebrate the launch of their new video streaming startup called Airtime.

The timing makes sense, with Parker in town for Facebook's f8 conference, where Zuckerberg just announced a slew of music sharing features alongside Spotify CEO Daniel Ek.

Over at Now! 99.7 ("All the hits!"), the radio station has posted photos from outside the supposed venue, although they haven't actually divulged the location at 1401 16th Street. Still, it's painted to look like one large graffiti explosion, so it would be pretty hard to miss if you happened to be walking by. (We're by no means experts of graffiti artists and their handwriting, but it does look a lot like Barry McGee's handiwork.)

So what do you say, dialed-in dotcom readers? Are we looking at a private concert the likes of which San Francisco hasn't seen since Pets.com went under? Or is this just a rumor and some street art photos?

UPDATE: Here we go: AllFacebook.com got their hands on an invite to the Parker-hosted post-conference happy hour party and concert. The venue in question is 1401 16th Street in SoMa/Potrero Hill. You could try your hand at RSVPing to SeanParkerEvent@ID-PR.com, but that "Invite is Non-Transferable" line is a little bit foreboding. If you sneak in through an air vent or something (not that we'd encourage that), please do let us know.

Former Smiths lead singer and avowed racist Morrissey will make a pitstop at the Fox Theater later this year. The (not so) sensitive crooner will appear with Kristeen Young at the Fox Theater on December 1st, with ticket prices ranging from $49.50 - $75.

Last year, if you recall, Morrissey said the following about the fine people of China, "You can't help but feel that the Chinese are a subspecies." He was referencing their treatment of animals, but...that doesn't make it OK. No, it does not.

He also made several deplorable anti-immigration remarks to NME magazine while living in Rome in 2009.

If you must, tickets go on sale this Sunday.

British singer Adele, scheduled to perform at the Greek Theatre at U.C. Berkeley on Saturday, June 4, has canceled the North American leg of her tour. Citing laryngitis, Adele explains on her site: “I’m really frustrated. I was hoping with a weeks rest I’d be better to sing again straight away. However there is absolutely nothing I can do but take the doctors advice and rest some more. I’m so sorry. See you soon, love Adele.”

Her hit single, "Rolling In the Deep," is currently the numer-one song in the U.S.

[SFGate]