3 Add a Lively Page in Pop to California Theatre Books

Two years after the death of its owner put an end to the California Theatre’s decade-long run as one of San Diego’s busiest pop concert facilities, the 61-year-old downtown landmark is gearing up for a reprise.

A troika of Los Angeles businessmen has signed an exclusive lease with California First Bank, the property’s trustee, to take over operations of the 1,800-seat former vaudeville house, which has been mostly dark since the death of its eccentric millionaire owner, A. W. Coggeshall, in the spring of 1986.

After spending nearly half a million dollars on improvements, including new carpeting, new paint, and a new sound and lighting system, partners Bob Stein, Stephen Schneider and Lewis Federici officially reopened the theater to pop shows with an April 2 performance by rock bands Icehouse and Wooden Tops.

Upcoming concerts, many of them booked in conjunction with Los Angeles promoting giant Avalon Attractions, include appearances by show band The Jesse Johnson Revue and rap kings Grand Master Flash, April 17; Top 40 heartthrob Terence Trent D’Arby, May 4; reggae hotshots Ziggy Marley (son of the late Bob Marley) and the Melody Makers, May 10; jazz fusionists Chick Correa and Herbie Hancock, June 4; reggae pioneer Jimmy Cliff, Aug. 20, and legendary jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli, Sept. 10.

By year’s end, Stein said, he hopes to have brought at least 80 big-name pop, rock, jazz and comedy acts into the California Theatre--with the annual total gradually upped to as many as 200 in future years.

“To me, the California Theatre fills a void on the local pop concert market,” said Stein, whose father briefly managed the theater in the early 1930s. “San Diego has lots of excellent little clubs and several big arenas, but until now there’s really been nothing in between except for Symphony Hall, which has pretty much turned into a full-time classical music house.

“I believe there are a number of pop fans out there, particularly the older ones, who want to see the entertainers up close, yet to whom the club environment is too tough, too noisy. The California Theatre provides them with this intimacy--as well as with the creature comforts you just don’t find in big arenas.”

Stein, 53, speaks from experience. After spending most of his younger years owning and managing movie theaters around Southern California, he entered the concert business in 1981, when he was hired to book pop shows into the Beverly Theater in Beverly Hills.

Over the next six years--until the theater was shut down in 1987 to make way for redevelopment--Stein produced close to 900 concerts, mostly by mellower acts that appealed primarily to older crowds--artists such as Smokey Robinson, Stephanie Mills and the Four Tops.

Since the Beverly Theater, with a seating capacity of about 1,400, was only slightly smaller than the California, Stein said, he’s hoping that what worked once will work again.

“The concerts we’re going to present at the California Theatre will complement both the building and the neighborhood,” Stein said. “We’re going to concentrate on pop, soft-rock, jazz and even comedy. I have nothing against punk rock or heavy metal, but that’s just not what we’re into.”

Apparently, that’s not what California First Bank officials are into, either.

“The concern that the trustee had was that in the last year the theater was operating while Mr. Coggeshall was still alive, there were a number of raucous concerts by punk rock and heavy metal bands,” Stein said. “They didn’t want to see the same thing happen again, and that’s why they decided to stop having concerts there after Mr. Coggeshall passed away.

“So I believe the chief reason we were able to put together this deal--while other promoters in the past were not--is our successful track record in Beverly Hills. Over the course of six years and 900 shows, we never had a single problem--even though the backstage loading dock was just 10, maybe 15 yards away from apartments that started at $1,500 a month.”

Built in 1927, the California Theatre originally hosted a mix of live vaudeville acts and silent movie showings. In the early 1930s, with the advent of “talkies” and the subsequent death of vaudeville, the theater was converted into a full-time movie house, with a larger screen and what was said to be the most advanced sound and projection system of its time.

For nearly four decades, the California Theatre continued to be one of San Diego’s most popular first-run movie theaters. But by the early 1970s, rising land values and the resultant proliferation of smaller multiplexes had made single-picture theaters something of a white elephant, and the California began a 10-year flirtation with pop concerts.

Featured during those years were such heavyweights as Pat Benatar, the Ramones, Devo, Ten Years After, Journey, Patti Smith and Elvin Bishop--an average of 70 shows a year, most of them quick sellouts.

“It was really a great venue to do concerts, particularly by development acts on their first or second tours who were just starting to hit,” recalled Bill Silva, who, with partner Mike Fahn, produced more than 300 concerts at the California Theatre between 1980 and 1986.

“The expenses were reasonable, the acoustics and the sight lines were ideal, it was in a good location--it was simply a great rock ‘n’ roll room, one of the best I’ve ever worked.”

Silva bemoans the fact that several rowdy punk and heavy metal shows booked by other promoters in 1985 and early 1986 prompted the theater’s trustee to ban pop concerts of any kind after Coggeshall’s death.