Free Concerts During The Summer Of Love
This is the Summer of Love in San Francisco, and here’s one thing to love when you’re in San Francisco this summer: free concerts.
The Stern Grove Festival is celebrating its 80th anniversary this summer. It runs from June 25-Aug. 27 in Sigmund Stern Grove, a beautiful outdoor amphitheater in San Francisco’s Sunset district, which is a few miles south of Golden Gate Park and near San Francisco State.
The Stern Grove Festival “is more than music; it’s an experience set in the nexus of music and nature,” in its own words.
Every summer Sunday from June through August, 10,000 people gather to party, picnic and celebrate music. And all for free. It’s been that way since it all started back in 1938.
And 2017 – which is the Summer of Love in San Francisco – marks the milestone 80th season of Stern Grove Festival, a music event unlike any other where the sounds of rock, hip-hop, jazz, folk, classical, funk, blues all define the experience.
Bands range from the indie rock band like OK Go!, to the San Francisco Symphony. Through its previous 79 summers, almost 900 concerts have run the gamut from Kronos Quartet to Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, from hip-hop super-group Deltron 3030 to iconic folk songstress Joan Baez, from Janelle Monáe to Darlene Love to Diana Krall, all in the same series as the San Francisco Ballet.
Well-known performers and bands have included Pink Martini, Mavis Staples, Rufus Wainwright, Smokey Robinson, Bonnie Raitt, and The Doobie Brothers for free.
All this takes place at “The Grove,” a hollow sunk into the San Francisco coastal topography as deep as a 14-story building is high, running the length of four city blocks surrounded by hundreds of eucalyptus and redwood trees, all more than a century old.
The Stern Grove Festival is definitely a unique San Francisco experience.
Link: Stern Grove Festival Website
Getting There: There is n public parking so organizers recommend taking MUNI, a bike or other transportation.
Address: Sloat Blvd, San Francisco, CA
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