Show goes on at S.F.’s Stern Grove Festival after 2 years of calamity

The festival’s 86th season opened Sunday after flooding and toppled trees threatened to derail the popular event.

Eileen McCrystle Tellez, who has been attending the free Stern Grove Festival concerts for 25 years, dances as Isaiah Sharkey performs Sunday.

Photo: Scott Strazzante/The Chronicle

First came the flood. Then came the rain. Finally came the sun, after a week of fog, to make thousands of Stern Grove faithful forget about two years of calamity and bad weather visited upon the free outdoor amphitheater on the southwest side of San Francisco.

星期天标志着节日的开幕式的86年代eason, which as recently as late April appeared unlikely. The March storms toppled 130 trees, mostly tall eucalyptus — one of which crushed the historic Trocadero Clubhouse, which had been scheduled to open as a venue barroom for the first time. Power and sewer lines were out, infrastructure was damaged, and the largest tree in the bowl came within 9 inches of taking out the backstage dressing room.

“Due to the catastrophic damage, there was concern about whether we would be able to repair everything in time to have a season,” said Bob Fiedler, executive director of theStern Grove Festival.

Emergency measures were taken and bulldozers brought in. At Sunday’s opening, the Trocadero was fenced off like a crime scene, and downed trees were stacked as if it were a lumber mill. But the opening show went on as planned and, amazingly, some of the downed trees allowed for extra sunlight in the bowl and improved sight lines.

“I almost teared up just thinking about it,” Fiedler said before the show. “The grove is in the roughest shape in modern times.”

A crowd watches Isaiah Sharkey’s performance at the Stern Grove Festival in San Francisco on Sunday.

Photo: Scott Strazzante/The Chronicle

But the faithful didn’t seem to notice. They had lined up at the 19th Avenue entrance at 8 a.m., and when the gates opened at noon they came down the steep driveway like horses wearing blinders.

“I was so focused on getting the best spot, I didn’t see the damage,” said Eileen McCrystle Tellez, who has been coming to the free concerts for 25 years. She had never heard of the headliner, jazz-funk collective Snarky Puppy, or opening act Isaiah Sharkey, a Chicago-born guitarist. But the performer doesn’t matter as much as the venue.

“It’s the pilgrimage to Stern Grove,” she said. “I’m a native San Franciscan, so it’s in my blood.”

Stern Grove encompasses 33 acres and forms a natural amphitheater that was surrounded and protected from the fog and wind by eucalyptus trees until they started falling down in the winter storms. The site was purchased by civic leader Rosalie M. Stern and donated to the city in 1931 to honor her late husband, Sigmund Stern, who had been president of Levi Straus & Co. The free summer festival began in 1938, and since then five generations of Stern descendants have chaired the Stern Grove Festival Association.

The series runs for 10 Sundays, through Aug. 20, and endeavors to include many genres. Folk-rock duo the Indigo Girls plays next Sunday, followed in successive weeks by hip-hop singer and dancer Santigold, country-roots singer Lyle Lovett and his Large Band, Beninese French singer-songwriter Angélique Kidjo, the San Francisco Symphony, Canadian electronic duo Bob Moses, blues guitarist Buddy Guy, and punk poet laureate Patti Smith.

The Big Picnic, an end-of-season fundraiser on Aug. 20, will feature psychedelic rockers the Flaming Lips.

The Trocadero Clubhouse is fenced off while undergoing storm damage renovations at Stern Grove.

Photo: Scott Strazzante/The Chronicle

The bowl holds 10,000 people, and reservations have been required since COVID-19, allowing for an exact count. Fiedler expects 75,000 people to attend the 10-concert season, breaking the record of 72,358 last season, which was nearly canceled due to the broken water main flood, which happened before the planned 2021 season ender. That show, which was to feature Tower of Power, had to be canceled when 700,000 gallons of water flooded the hillside, washed out the bowl and covered it with mud.

Restoration by the Water Department, whose cost estimateballooned from $4 million to $23 million, was scheduled for completion last March until heavy rains added to the job. An 85-foot eucalyptus tree crashed through the roof of theTrocadero Clubhouseon the site, taking out the sprinkler system, which flooded the place and put an end to wedding reception season before it began.

“This is soul crushing,” said Phil Ginsburg, general manager of the Recreation and Park Department, which oversees Stern Grove. The Trocadero Clubhouse was feared to be a total loss but can be saved for $2.5 million, according to Recreation and Park, which owns it. It has applied for a loan from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and if it comes through repairs will begin after the concert season ends in August.

Isia and Jenna Garcia of Santa Rosa lay out a blanket near a stump at the Stern Grove Festival on Sunday.

Photo: Scott Strazzante/The Chronicle

That’s a long way from the beginning. As the bowl filled up Sunday, Michael Paim of San Francisco stood in front of the stage in his trademark leopard print robe. He had fewer doubts than director Fiedler that the 86th season at Stern Grove would go on as scheduled.

“I’m amazed and delighted,” said Paim, a regular for 14 years. “Stern Grove is such an important aspect of San Francisco community and public art that they couldn’t not do it.”

Reach Sam Whiting:swhiting@sfchronicle.com

  • Sam Whiting
    Sam Whiting

    Sam Whiting has been a staff writer at The San Francisco Chronicle since 1988. He started as a feature writer in the People section, which was anchored by Herb Caen's column, and has written about people ever since. He is a general assignment reporter with a focus on writing feature-length obituaries. He lives in San Francisco and walks three miles a day on the steep city streets.