Cheap Trick, Offspring to headline 2016 X-Fest concert

March 7, 2016 10:20 AM PT

Cheap Trick and the Offspring will co-headline the 2016 edition of San Diego radio station 91X’s annual X-Fest concert at Sleep Train Amphitheatre in Chula Vista in June. Cheap Trick, which was formed in 1973, will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 8 at Barclays Center in New York, alongside Deep Purple, Chicago, N.W.A. and the Steve Miller Band.

The lineup for the marathon June 5 X-Fest also includes Iration, Kongos, Wolfmother, Chevy Metal (a band led by Foo Fighters’ drummer taylor Hawkins), The Shelters, SWMRS (which is led by drummer Joey Armstrong, the son of Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong), The Frights, Grace Mitchell and The Young Wild. San Diego fans who want a preview of the hard-rocking Wolfmother can catch the latest iteration of the Australian band when it performs March 23 at San Diego’s House of Blues. Ticket information for X-Fest appears below.

“The first X-Fest was 33 years ago with Tom Petty, the Ramones, Stray Cats, Modern English, and Bow Wow Wow “ said 91X Program Director Michael Halloran. “(The) 2016 (edition) will prove to be legendary, too. I am looking forward to seeing the legendary Cheap Trick, and the future local legends all in one day at one venue. This is what 91X is all about.”

X-Fest is being co-produced by 91X and Live Nation, which owns Sleep train Amphitheatre and San Diego’s House of Blues.

Tickets are priced at $16.41 to $49.91 each for the all-ages June 5 concert.

Pre-sale tickets for X-Fest go on sale today, Monday, at 10:00 a.m. for listeners registered with 91X’s e-mail and texting lists. A Live Nation mobile app presale begins Tuesday at 10 a.m., as does a pre-sale on the websites of some of the bands performing at X-Fest.

Tickets go on-sale to the public Friday at 10 a.m. at livenation.com, all Ticketmaster outlets, and by phone at (800) 745-3000.

Source: DiscoverSD

Music

George Varga

San Diego Union-Tribune music critic George Varga began drumming in rock bands at 12 and writing professionally about music at 15. A Louisiana native who grew up mostly in Germany, Varga has earned three Pulitzer Prize nominations for his writing at the U-T and is a voting member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In addition to providing live coverage of the Grammy Awards and festivals from Coachella and KAABOO to the 1994 edition of Woodstock, he has interviewed everyone from Miles Davis, Britney Spears and (over a game of chess) Ray Charles to Willie Nelson, Kanye West and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis. A triple first prize-winner for criticism and arts writing at the 2022 and 2023 San Diego Press Club awards and a double first prize-winner at the 2022 and 2023 San Diego Society of Professional Journalists awards, Varga is also a contributing writer for Jazz Times magazine and has written for Billboard, Spin and other publications. After attending San Diego City College and San Diego State University, he created and taught the 2002 UC San Diego Extension course, “Jazz in a Post-Ken-Burns World.” Varga has written liner notes for more than a dozen albums, including by jazz sax greats James Moody and Michael Brecker, and contributed two chapters to the book, “Dylan: Disc By Disc.”