It’s Saturday and we are too late for Joan Baez. The Golden Gate Park seems flooded by a wave of people and we dive into the woods, looking for a last place to sit. We can barely see the stage, but the guards are just changing so we have time for mourn for the loss of Ms. Baez – for that is who we came here for. An interesting crowd of people passes in front of us on the path. Business men, still wearing their suits, children with Mickey Mouse hats, girls with leggings and large T-shirts and elderly people in fleece vests.
Around us are the people who continue to spread the hippie feeling from the sixties. On colorful rugs lie dog laces: twirled rope with blue and red beads. For sale for ten dollars. A man and a woman with a dog lie close to each other while passing on a marijuana pipe. With three threads, blue, red and green, is a girl with Peace signed earrings trying to twirl the hair of a boy to a happy tuft of color. On the grounds is a bus with two kids on the roof, climbing up there to see more of the stage. When the music sounds, everybody gets up to move their hips slowly left to right. There is a vast smile on everyone’s face and they applaud when the final accord ends.
The chairs of the day before are gone. The crowd stands on it’s on two feet. And when Gillian Welch starts playing, my weekend is complete.