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ZZ Top leader Billy Gibbons to headline 2018 AimLoan.com San Diego Blues Festival

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top is shown performing in the U.S. Capitol in Washington. He will headline the 8th annual AimLoan.com San Diego Blues Festival on Sept. 8, 2018.
(Photo by Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
By George Varga
San Diego Union-Tribune
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Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Billy Gibbons, the lead guitarist and lead singer in the band ZZ Top, will headline the eighth annual AimLoan.com San Diego Blues Festival.

To be held Sept. 8, 2018, at Embarcadero Marina Park North, the festival will also feature performances by Tommy Castro & The Painkillers, two-time Grammy nominee Kenny Neal, John Nemeth & The Blue Dreamers, Lightnin’ Malcolm, and The Sons of The Soul Revivers.

The lineup will be completed by three San Diego performers — Chickenbone Slim & the Biscuits, Sarah Rogo and slide-guitar specialist Fred Heath.

Gibbons will be performing with the band he formed to promote his 2015 debut solo album, “Perfectamundo.” He has no other non-ZZ Top performances currently scheduled for this year.

All proceeds from the festival will benefit the Jacobs & Cushman San Diego Food Bank’s hunger-relief programs. Since its inception in 2011, the festival has raised more than $750,000 and 13 tons of food to feed individuals and families in need throughout San Diego County.

“We’re honored to have Billy Gibbons as our headliner this year,” said James A. Floros, president and CEO of the Jacobs & Cushman San Diego Food Bank, in a statement released Monday morning.

“He’s not only a rock and roll legend, he’s also passionate about helping others and the mission of the San Diego Food Bank fighting hunger in our community.”

Gibbons will be the fourth Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee to perform at the festival, following Mavis Staples, Eric Burdon & The Animals and Booker T. Jones.

Tickets for the 2018 AimLoan.com San Diego Blues Festival are now on sale online at sdbluesfest.com/.

General admission tickets bought online until April 30 will have a 33 percent discount and cost $20 each. Those same tickets will cost $30 each starting May 1.

Also available are $150 VIP tickets, which include complimentary lunch, two drinks and preferred shaded seating near the festival’s two stages. Super VIP tickets, priced at $250, include all VIP benefits and guaranteed seats directly in front of each stage, along with an invitation to the festival’s VIP kickoff party the night before.

In addition to title sponsor AimLoan.com, the festival’s two stages are underwritten by Business Complete Solutions and Baker Electric Solar. Additional underwriting is provided by the San Diego Commission for Arts & Culture, the County of San Diego and Kaiser Permanente.

For more information, call (858) 863-5198.

george.varga@sduniontribune.com

Twitter @georgevarga

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.”

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