Thank you for visiting San José City Hall and clicking on the QR code that designates the location of a significant musical event: The Grateful Dead’s first performance under that name.

FACTS ABOUT THE GRATEFUL DEAD

• On December 4, 1965, the band performed at an “Acid Test” staged by countercultural provocateur Ken Kesey inside a large Victorian home that once stood at 38 South Fifth Street in San Jose. The group had been known as “The Warlocks” for several months in the summer and fall of 1965, but in late November the band members decided to become “The Grateful Dead.”

• The footprint for the house where the Dead performed now sits beneath City Hall Plaza, roughly in the open area with picnic tables that face the entrance to the City Council chambers. 

• When the current San José City Hall began construction in 2002, the house at 38 South Fifth Street was relocated to 390 North Fourth Street, where it was renovated and converted to a duplex. It still stands there and is owned by a department of San Jose State University, utilized as housing for faculty and staff. If you choose to visit the address, please do not disturb the occupants.

• The December 4, 1965, performance by the nascent Grateful Dead happened because the band, which was then headquartered in Palo Alto and Menlo Park, had met Kesey as a neighbor when he was a Stanford graduate student. After gaining fame for writing the best-selling novel, “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest,” Kesey subsequently moved to a Santa Cruz Mountain cabin compound in La Honda and his friendship with the band grew. When he launched his idea to conduct mind-altering experiments with LSD, a legal drug at the time, it was natural for Kesey to ask the Grateful Dead to play at the first public “Acid Test,” which he decided to conduct in San José.

• Kesey picked the December 4 date because the Rolling Stones were playing two sold out shows that night at San José Civic Auditorium, seven blocks from the home on Fifth Street. Kesey hoped to lure concertgoers to the “Acid Test” and had has “Merry Prankster” followers pass out homemade flyers inviting them to the Fifth Street gathering.

• The tactic was successful. The party, as described in author Tom Wolfe’s book, “The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test,” was a wild affair with swirling-colored lights and strobe flashes, along with echoing sound effects. A crowd of several hundred people spilled out of the house onto Fifth Street. The band set up its gear in the home’s living room and added to the cacophony as Jerry Garcia, Bill Kreutzmann, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, Phil Lesh and Bob Weir played their first musical notes as the Grateful Dead.

• The band’s set lasted slightly more than an hour, but the party continued until almost dawn. The Grateful Dead participated in several more “Acid Tests” with Kesey throughout the Bay Area before relocating to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district in 1966 and gaining worldwide fame.

• In a 1972 interview, Jerry Garcia said that the San José “Acid Test” was the genesis of the band’s performance ethos. Among other things, it was the first time a “light show” accompanied live rock music, an idea that grew and became widespread in San Francisco ballrooms before catching on nationally

• When a non-profit group, San Jose Rocks, realized the historic nature of the December 4, 1965, event, it launched a project to place a commemorative plaque on the location where the first ever Grateful Dead performance occurred. The closest spot to mount the plaque was on the exterior south wall of the San José City Council chambers. After receiving permission to use the Grateful Dead logo on the plaque, it was dedicated on December 4, 2025, with a civic celebration.

• The plaque was paid for privately with a fundraising campaign organized by San Jose Rocks, a grass roots organization formed to recognize the musical heritage and legacy of the city and the South Bay, as well as promote music education for young people to inspire future generations.

• The names of those who contributed generously to the fundraising campaign can be found on the sanjoserocks.org website, along with further information and a more complete version of the December 4, 1965, story.

Home to the December 4th Ken Kesey acid test. Relocated from 38 S. Fifth St. to 390 N. Fourth St. in San Jose. Photo by WalkiesThroughHistory.