At the Santa Barbara Bowl, an amphitheater tucked into 17 woodsy acres north of the city’s downtown district, there are two ways for concertgoers to get up to the stage itself. The more direct path, a paved road, wends its way from the front entry gates to the right of the venue. A second route cuts through the middle of the property, offering a slower climb up to the stage and its wide views of the Pacific Ocean. Those who don’t mind the few extra minutes can take this scenic way — the venue’s outdoor lobby, of sorts — and bask in a wooded glen overflowing with native plants.
Underneath these leafy bushes and tree canopies, an unusual sight then materializes: a prominent bronze sculpture depicting the right hand of the late Jerry Garcia, the frontman of the Grateful Dead.
Cast in bronze and weighing 75 pounds, the foot-and-a-half-long sculpture both memorializes the guitar legend and anchors the naturalistic space itself, officially dubbed the Jerry Garcia Glen. While the Bowl isn’t open to visitors on non-show days, the sculpture does draw in Deadheads attending shows there to pay tribute to Garcia’s famous guitar-picking hand, which includes an accurate depiction of Garcia’s middle finger, which he lost most of in a wood-chopping accident as a child.
Garcia’s outsized presence at the Santa Barbara Bowl suggests that the late musician frequented the historic venue, with those shows becoming entwined in the Dead’s legendary lore. But Garcia barely spent time here. He only played the Bowl once, in October 1974, in a solo showing without the Dead…