This Sunday from 11am until 6pm, a tribute concert for the late Warren Hellman will take place in the Ocean Beach parking lot along the Great Highway. SF Rec & Park confirmed the location last week, but there was no explanation why it wouldn’t be held at the recently re-named Hellman Hollow in Golden Gate Park.
The event will include two stages of music featuring many of the musicians that play the annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival that Hellman organized and financed every summer in Golden Gate Park. Last summer, it attracted dozens of bands and over half a million concertgoers to the park.
Artists will appear in the following order on Sunday beginning at 11am. Performances will alternate between the two stages (e.g. both will not be going at once):
Poor Man’s Whiskey
John Doe
Kevin Welch, Kieran Kane & Fats Kaplin
Dry Branch Fire Squad
Steve Earle
Buddy Miller
The Wronglers with Jimmie Dale Gilmore
Gillian Welch
Boz Scaggs
Old Crow Medicine Show
Robert Earl Keen
Emmylou Harris with special guest The Go to Hell Man Clan
The concert will also be streamed live at http://www.strictlybluegrass.com. Public transportation is of course encouraged, and valet parking for bikes will be available. If you want to get a good spot, the earliest you can arrive is 8am. Visit the event page for all the details on Sunday’s free concert.
And for you planners, mark your calendars for October 5-7. That’s when this year’s 12th annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival will take place in Golden Gate Park.
Sarah B.
For those wanting to surf or just go to the beach, this will not be a good day to do so. The parking lot is a very odd place indeed.
Not necessarily a comment about this event, but wouldn’t it be nice if the city and feds would direct event fees back into improving that section of Ocean Beach? It seems like dozens of events are held there every year and the infrastructure looks like a dump.
as for “why not hold it in the meadow?” – just a guess, but even with the limited rain we’ve seen this winter, the ground there is likely too soggy (or potentially so this time of year) to hold up to the crowds and stages and trucks and such – the paved parking lot is a much safer, stable option
I was on Lincoln and Great Highway tonight. The Great Highway in both directions will be closed from Saturday night at midnight through Sunday night at 9 PM. I assume this is for the concert.
This is also the same weekend that the West bound lanes of the Bay Bridge will be closed for entering the city. So, traffic ought to be an interesting holiday weekend for traffic.
One week notice?
we’re really supposed to believe that the permit for the location was only approved now? Or is don’t rich people like Helman and his family have to get them? so what, the city just says to let them know when they want to have a concert and everyone will jump for them?
Your telling me the cops get a week’s notice to arrange their schedules so they’ll have the manpower for this event? The City or CalTrans or whoever only decides a week in advance that they will close HIGHWAY 1 on a weekend? its a major road. This has a huge effect on a lot of people and not just us that lives out here.
I’ve been asking for weeks when and where — getting no answers at all. Hardly takes a genus to know theres something really fishy going on.
^Highway 1? You can’t be serious.
I am 99.44% sure that Highway 1 through SF will not be closed. Great Highway will be closed all day on Sunday and I imagine it will be from Sutro to somewhere in Sunset. Can’t seem to find info as to the exact stretch.
An announcement about the concert a few weeks back said that it would either be Hellman Hollow or Ocean Beach parking lot. My guess they decided this week because they were hoping to use the Hollow. But, recent rain has made it squishy.
What i am surprised about, they decided to do it on Presidents’ Day Weekend when the Bay Bridge is going to be closed and people would be more likely to go to the beach if the weather is nice. But then again, if I paid attention a couple of weeks ago, my surprise would be over now.
The closure is not too bad:
JFK is closed from Bernice Rodgers (AKA S Fork Drive) to the Great Hwy. Great Highway is closed between Fulton Street and Lincoln Way.
They should hold every lage event at ocean beach instead of ripping up grass and destroying the park for 3 days straight with one crappy concert after another. Other people live in this city too, its really unbelivable how they haven’t gotten rid of these over-sized concerts, not to menchen the music they play sucks.
My bad — was thinking Great Hwy is Hwy 1. It’s not.
Point was that since when is it possible to take out a permit and say you may want an event at one location in the park or maybe another but you don’t really know yet and will get back to them a week before?
different sites need different equip.stages and sound systems and all.
they have to get a lot more than a weeks notice 4 a concert with 8000+people. u dont close grt hwy with 1 wk notice. Or sched. staff, cops, rent porta potties etc.
. city and cops had to know where and when this was gonna be long time back. it effects a lot of people. we have the right to know nore than a week B4. some kinda big bs going on. they knew and someone told em not to tell and they went along with it. so wrong.
Blame the Rec and Park people for the late permits and confusion not the Hellman folks.
My understanding is the concert was announced late because they didn’t want huge crowds. I have to say that after years of experiencing the massive growth of the these events in the parks, today went beautifully on Fulton St. There was parking, no gridlocked traffic, no booming noise. I drove along the Great Highway yesterday and was blown away by the huge stage and tents that had been set up so quickly between Fulton and Lincoln Way. Hope people who went had a good time, and I gotta agree with Rob S., really wish we could consider this locale in the future. Am curious what neighbors along Ocean Beach thought?
My only problems with having an increase in these types of activities at the Ocean Beach parking lot, is that it effectively closes off the beach for other recreation. That area of the beach is also one of the few areas that has reasonable parking that makes bringing gear such as boards from home much more doable.
Although concerts certainly have an environmental impact in GG Park, the population attending those events is less concentrated than in the smaller area at Ocean Beach. Additionally, environmental effects are somewhat contained in the park; while at the beach, they can reach other ecosystems more readily through ongoing movement of ocean water that can carry trash from the event out to sea and to nearby protect areas.
HSBG fences off the area from Crossover to the Polo Fields for 6 or 7 days — right during some of the nicest weather of the year. Last year, Outside Lands fenced it off for9 days — right at the end of the summer. The residents of San Francisco were denied access to their own property — the park they own, and that their taxes pay for — for 9 days so that a huge corporation (Another Planet Entertainment) can turn int into a huge concert stadium and hold a for-profit event. Many people seem to think that Outside Lands is a benefit where all proceeds go Rec&Park. It is not. APE takes over Golden Gate Park to make a huge profit — and a small percentage of their take goes to Rec&Park.
I was there for an hour or two. It makes a pretty decent venue. Weather cooperated. No shortage of people enjoying the beach at the same time, either, and you could go back and forth between the beach and the music, which was nice.
The crowds were thick, though– realistically, I don’t see how you’d fit more than were already there. I think there are a lot more people (and acts) at HSB.