Saturday, December 4, 1965

Notable Moment

First show as the Grateful Dead

San Jose acid test, billed under the new name for the first time. The Warlocks had been playing live since May 1965 (Magoo's Pizza Parlor); by late November the band had picked the new name from a dictionary (Garcia's discovery), and this 12/4/65 acid test is the first widely-documented show under "Grateful Dead." Original five-piece — Garcia, Lesh, Weir, Pigpen, Kreutzmann.

Curator's Note

The night the Warlocks became the Grateful Dead in front of an audience. December 4, 1965: after the Rolling Stones played the San Jose Civic Auditorium across town, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters threw an Acid Test at a house nearby, and the freshly renamed band plugged in. No tape of the music survives and no setlist was kept, which feels right for a night that was less a concert than a happening. What matters is the marker. Everything in this atlas, every Cornell and Veneta and Barton Hall, begins here.