David Nelson | Fairfax, CA | November 9th, 2025 | photos by Gabriel David Barkin
David Nelson, founding member of the New Riders of the Purple Sage (NRPS), assembled an all-star cast of musicians in Marin County this weekend to celebrate the music of his seminal psychedelic bluegrass band. The Fairfax Pavilion hosted the hippie sock hop, which was billed as “The Harvest Hootenanny.”
“When I play in Marin, it always feels like a homecoming,” Nelson said recently. “The songs tell their stories, but the real magic happens between the people on stage and in the crowd.”
The ensemble for this special event included:
- Jackie Greene, acclaimed singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist known for his work with Phil Lesh & Friends and The Black Crowes.
- Garrett Deloian, guitarist and frontman of Jerry’s Middle Finger.
- Pete Grant, legendary pedal steel player and NRPS veteran who recorded with the Grateful Dead (specifically, he is credited for playing on “Doin’ That Rag”).
- Bill Laymon, longtime NRPS bassist.
- Jerry Saracini, drummer for Forgotten Space.
Sunday’s show, the second of two this weekend, also included an opening set by Eric and Suzy Thompson. Eric played alongside Nelson and Jerry Garcia in the bluegrass and roots Americana group the Black Mountain Boys way back in their Palo Alto days. The Thompsons played for about half of the first set with Nelson and company after performing as a duo to open the show.
Fairfax, widely known as one of Marin County’s premier enclaves, was the ideal setting for this special show. It’s the geographic and metaphorical center for the many hippified denizens of Marin – which range from the 1960s OGs to their myriad literal and spiritual descendants. Young and old alike turned out to hear classic NRPS songs and the like, including “Henry,” “Kick in the Head,” and covers of songs written by Bob Dylan (obligatory, perhaps even required by law to appear at least once per set in such settings) and the Rolling Stones.
The Fairfax Pavilion is a community center on a small hill above the downtown area. It’s essentially a big, open gym with a small stage set up on one side of a basketball court. A pastoral painting of pastures covering the undeveloped Marin Headlands provides a backdrop for the stage. During the Hootenanny, a live Grateful Dead stadium performance from the 1980s was projected silently on one of the walls, and it seemed like Jerry, Brent and Bobby were singing along with Nelson. There were tie-dyes hanging all around, and a few local vendors got to sell their tie-dye merch Inside…