Where Was Garcia on May 29, 1987?

As I have noted, Garcia’s final Keystone Family gigs before jumping ship to Wolfgang as his permanent and exclusive hometown promoter took place at the end of May 1987, as In the Dark was getting huge. The big fella would play very few club gigs after the Wednesday (27th)-Thursday (28th) and Saturday (30th)-Sunday (31st) Stone shows.

The Friday gap night always just struck me as a day of rest. But, well, was it?

The Hermes Project, based in Malibu, was promoting a world premiere showing of “The Hero’s Journey”, a film about mythologist Joseph Campbell, featuring the man himself, plus special guests on a panel, plus a reception. Music composed by Mickey Hart and Rand Wetherwax –presumably “The African Queen Meets The Holy Ghost”— “with special performance by Jerry Garcia” [itals original], all scheduled for Friday, May 29, 1987, 8 PM, at the Director’s Guild, 7950 Sunset in LA (map).

The event got other line announcements in the LA Weekly and the LA Times, but I found no ex post accounts, nor have I ever heard of this thing before. Of course, the November 1, 1986 “Ritual and Rapture” event at the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre in San Francisco is well known, and it included a performance of the Hart-Wetherwax composition, with Garcia playing a headless Steinberger. Blair Jackson wrote it up in Golden Road (no. 13, Winter 1987, p. 6).

But did this encore event happen on May 29, 1987? I sure would like to know.

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