Live music and dancing lasted all day when Deadheads from across the state gathered in Columbia for the city’s annual celebration of the late Jerry Garcia.

Loose Lucys, a Grateful Dead-inspired clothing shop in Columbia, and the Five Points Association brought the community together Oct. 5 for the 11th year.

But 11th year wasn’t the only anniversary that people celebrated. 

Don McCallister, owner of Loose Lucy’s with his wife, Jenn, said it has been 40 years since the Grateful Dead last appeared in Columbia. 

“They played at the old Carolina Coliseum on Halloween Night, 1985,” McCallister said. “And that was my first show. I was a college student at USC then.” 

Now, every year, fans try to bring back what was lost when Garcia died in 1995, marking yet another anniversary: 30 years since his passing. 

McCallister, like many of the endlessly-touring band’s loyal followers, work to keep the music alive through music gatherings throughout the year.

“There were quite a few of us in the Deadhead World who kind of swore that we would do all that we could to make sure that his legacy was properly honored and that what we called the ‘scene,’ you know, would go on,” McCallister said. 

Many of those committed fans were celebrating with McCallister in the barricaded streets of Five Points. 

Scott Koverman of Lexington said he drove over that morning. 

“I haven’t come for eight years. Life, kids, whatever. But tonight,” Koverman said as he took the Grateful Dead ballcap from his head and threw it to the ground. “I’m here to boogie!”  

Almost everyone, including vendors, children and shoppers and nearby residents just passing through, stopped for a dance. 

Rob Martz said he came to the festival with his friends but left his wife and children at home.

“My wife is scared of the kids seeing me in full Grateful Dead mode,” Martz said, still dancing. “But this is me.” 

Vendors look forward to the event every year. Some even left their shops to dance with the crowd when special songs played. 

Rebecca Rogers was at JerryFest for the 4th year, selling her homemade tie-dyes from a tent. 

“It is one of our favorite events of the year,” Rogers said. “I mean, I went to school here and I used to shop at Loose Lucy’s when I was in college.” 

Grateful Dead followers value community and togetherness, but it seemed, like Rogers and the McCallisters, that some attendees already knew one another. 

One group of Deadheads stayed in front of the stage all day, dancing almost without a break. 

Cyrus Kimini and Joel Caldwell see each other at almost every Dead event they go to, including each Wednesday at the Charleston Pour House for the Reckoning, a cover band that played at JerryFest two years ago. 

For Kimini, Garcia is much more than a musician. 

“Jerry’s ‘Mission in the Rain’ captures the reality of homelessness I experienced in my life journey,” Kimini said.

When the song played later in the evening, he closed his eyes to dance to it. 

“Jerry himself shook his head at us in approval as we danced in front of him at Madison Square Garden in 1994,” Kimini said of one of his fondest memories. 

Others at the festival never got to experience Garcia while he was alive. 

Along with the younger fans, Jessica Sharpe didn’t see Garcia in person and was never a huge follower of the music herself. But her husband is. 

“We mix our cultures,” Sharpe said. 

As she ran Zosh Gift Shop, her own craft business, her husband was just a few feet away, by the main stage. 

“A lot of the stuff I make is from Mexico and my family will help send me things,” Sharpe said. “And my husband loves music. So it is what he loves and what I love from my country.” 

The McCallisters joined the crowd after Loose Lucy’s closed for the night, enjoying the final few songs and admiring the community they had helped brought together

Don McCallister could be caught in the front row. But keeping the “scene,” he said, is not just about the music. 

“It’s not simply because we wanted to keep having fun and go to concerts and ‘spin around in the lobby’ and all that,” McCallister said. 

Strangers danced with one another around him, and the vendors closed their booths to join the celebration. 

“It was also just that I and many other people felt that what the Grateful Dead had contributed to culture was important enough to remember,” McCallister said.