The flags were at half staff in San Francisco, and on one, a riot of colors replaced the traditional red, white and blue. It was the first tie-dyed flag to fly in front of city hall. The Bay Area was mourning the loss of its Papa Bear. Jerry Garcia, lead guitarist of the Grateful Dead, had died Wednesday morning at 53, reportedly of heart failure, after three decades of tunes and trips.
Thousands milled pensively at the corner of Haight and Ashbury streets, in the district where in 1965 the Dead first kicked open the doors of perception with its perky anthems to the Hippie Nation. The sweet sting of reefer smoke drifted from doorways, as Jerry's kids paid the revered pothead a small toke of their esteem. A tree outside Ben & Jerry's ice cream parlor (where a flavor is named Cherry Garcia) was adorned with photos, scarves and roses, many roses.
At this impromptu shrine, a griever named Creek left a rock he had found on a nearby beach. "I hope Jerry's happy," he said. Creek, who has attended nearly 200 Dead concerts, is four years old. The boy's mother, Kathy, 23, watched over him through her dreadlocks. "I hope he remembers this day," she murmured. "It's a special thing--to feel all the love."
In cities all over the U.S., this gentle elegy was replicated. More than 4,000 people massed in Los Angeles' Griffith Park, passing out LONG LIVE THE DEAD bumper stickers in Merry Prankster green and creating a huge circle of drum players and mourner-celebrants. One sign read, "Fare thee well, fare thee well, we miss you more than words can tell." In Manhattan's Central Park, 700 Deadheads gathered under the full moon at the memorial to another fallen idol, John Lennon. In Washington, where more than 300 souls converged on the Lincoln Memorial, Rush Jones, 25, spoke his anxiety in prime Dead style. Garcia's death marked "the end of a chapter of my life," he said. "Not with a dot, a period, but slammed shut, the ink still dribbling from the page."
Why all this lamentation, at Lennon or Presley volume, for the leader of a group that in 30 years had exactly one Top 10 single (1987's acerbic but hummy Touch of Grey)? Well, for a few reasons. One is that the Dead was a phenomenon as a road band: it played before more people for more years than any combo in history. Another is that it was a time capsule for the elan of the '60s, hopeful and engaged, melodious and raucous. It was also the ragged champs of the art of improvisation. If rock musicians prove their wits by vamping, the Dead were Mensa masters. A single song, in its myriad tonal variations, could go on for the better part of an hour--or the worse part, if inspiration was lacking that night. Deadheads came for that inspiration, and found it in the roly-poly guitarist with a missing middle finger on his strumming hand. Garcia was the soul, the sound--by common consent, the head Dead.