ROCK ‘N’ ROLLERS PULL ONE OFF FOR SAN DIEGO

It worked. After a weeklong petition drive gathered more than 33,000 signatures urging Van Halen not to bypass San Diego on its summer tour, Brian Murphy of Avalon Attractions said Friday that the rock supergroup will play June 28 at the Sports Arena.

You won’t find anyone who’s happier about that than Scott Chatfield, promotions director of rock radio station KGB-FM (101.5). Chatfield’s station sponsored the drive after learning May 13 that San Diego was not on Van Halen’s schedule.

“For the last several months, every major rock band on tour has been ignoring San Diego,” Chatfield said. “Rush, Heart, the Firm--and now Van Halen. The last time they played here was two years ago, and they sold out two nights at the arena.

“Their new album is No. 1. And for them to bypass San Diego on their summer tour was just the last straw.”

KGB announcers asked listeners for suggestions on how best to change the band’s mind, and the “overwhelming response was, ‘Hey, let’s start a petition drive,’ so that’s what we did,” Chatfield said. “We only had a week before the band’s tour schedule was to be finalized, so we announced a deadline of 9 a.m. Wednesday, May 21.

“The night before, we only had 16,000 signatures. But by morning, we had more than 33,000, and as soon as the count was done we drove up to Van Halen’s management office in Beverly Hills and presented them to the band’s manager.”

Two days later, Chatfield said, the station heard back from the band. A tentative date in Phoenix, set for June 28, will be scrapped and, instead, the band will play San Diego.

“It wasn’t a gimmick or a publicity stunt,” Chatfield said. “There was a very real chance of failure. But KGB was merely the catalyst--in the end, it was the rock ‘n’ rollers of San Diego who pulled this off.”