Remembering Phil Lesh: Deadheads descend on ‘Grateful Dead House’ in San Francisco following death of bassist

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — Deadheads descended on the Haight-Ashbury house Friday that the band called home in the 1960s, to say good-bye to Grateful Dead founding member Phil Lesh.

“They’ve had a really big influence on our life. And, so I like to think of the happy memories,” said Joan Durbin, who was visiting from Atlanta with her husband.

“When we heard the news that Phil had died, we decided we wanted to come down here and just pay our respects,” she said. “It’s like watching a bunch of your friends get older and everybody gets older, and so people die that the music goes on,” added Mark Durbin.

And the music was going on across the street in a Volkswagen van.

“It’s surreal I mean the dead were getting old,” said Johnny Greavu. “I figured this day was coming, but not so soon.”

RELATED: Phil Lesh, founding member of Bay Area’s The Grateful Dead, dies at 84

The band is symbol of the counterculture movement of the sixties.

“If you look at that house and you think about the people that have gone up and down those steps and those special years, that was a very special moment in time,” said Michael Seiler.

“Deadheads are you know, it’s where all the runaways, the outcasts, the addicts,” said Greavu. “It’s a whole community of misfits in a way and it’s home for a lot people who don’t feel they have a home.”

The band’s music defining a generation and inspiring generations of fans to follow.

“The energy from that time is still here, you feel it. We’re sitting in a van, there’s people walking up and down the streets who know this music, it just never stops,” said Seiler.