Concert Festivals Are Back With a Southwestern Flair

Five years ago, city officials decided that the grass playing field at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium would be better off without the periodic ravages of thousands of pairs of dancing, stomping, trampling, kicking teen-age feet. Not to mention gallons of spilled beer and tons of ground-in hot dogs, hamburgers and cigarette butts.

Since then, major outdoor pop concert festivals in San Diego have been conspicuous by their absence, simply because no one has been able to come up with a suitable alternative to the stadium. No one, that is, until local promoter Bill Silva recently took a look at Southwestern College’s football field and heard the knock of opportunity on his door. After a chat with college administrators, Silva decided to open that door, fast.

This summer, outdoor concert festivals--three definites and a handful of maybes--are coming back to San Diego, albeit on a much smaller scale.

For one thing, Southwestern’s capacity, including field and grandstand, is about 13,000, contrasted with 50,000-plus at the stadium. For another, instead of three or four megastars per fest, there will be only one headliner and perhaps an opening act. On July 31, it will be former Police lead singer Sting, on Aug. 6, folk-rock legend Bob Dylan with the new-wave group the Alarm. And, sometime in September, heavy-metal veterans Aerosmith and upstarts Guns ‘n’ Roses come in.

But the ambiance, Silva hopes, will be the same. As in the stadium extravaganzas of yore, the gates will open at 4:30--more than three hours before showtime--to enable patrons to spread out blankets on the field for pre-concert picnics. The stage will be set up on the north end of the field, and on the south end will be a beer garden and concessions selling entrees, desserts and souvenirs. And, throughout the afternoon, mariachi and polka bands will wander through the crowd as a prelude to the nighttime entertainment.

“The type of people we expect to attract to these shows are primarily from the generation that grew up on Woodstock, California Jam and other big festivals,” Silva said. “So we’re trying to give them a throwback to those times when you got your friends together, jumped into the car, and spent an entire afternoon and evening hanging out and sharing not just music, but culture.”

Because of this festival atmosphere, Silva added, he expects to sell 15% to 20% more tickets to each show at Southwestern than he would if he were to book the same act indoors at the comparably sized San Diego Sports Arena. That increase is all the more significant in light of the fact that, with more local pop shows on tap for this summer than ever, many promoters--Silva included--fear the San Diego concert market is on the verge of supersaturation.

“We’re trying to create events so that our shows won’t get lost in the flux of everything else that’s going on this summer,” Silva said. “There’s so much competition that we can no longer just throw out tickets and expect radio and the media to sell them for us; we need to be promoters , we need to find new selling points that will enable us to make each show a special event, not just another concert at the Sports Arena.

“And since San Diego is synonymous with the outdoors, now is as good a time as any for these festival-type shows to come back into the market.”

The good: Since its opening last November, Rio’s has been something of a shelter for the homeless--the homeless being San Diego rock ‘n’ roll bands whose insistence on playing their own material instead of Top 40 covers has made them personae non grata in most local nightclubs.

Rio’s owner Cameron Moshtaghi apparently believes one good deed deserves another, because, as of June 1, he’s been letting in free any musicians who are, were or want to be in a band.

“Most local musicians don’t have a lot of money, and shelling out $2 or $5 a night can really put a dent in their pocketbooks,” Moshtaghi said. “This way, they have a place where they can hang out, where they can talk with one another and share ideas without it costing them anything.

“And creating this kind of environment is essential for any city, like San Diego, that hopes to develop a vibrant original music scene.”

The bad: A month and a half after Rounder Records released the debut album by San Diego blue-eyed soulsters the Jacks, cassette copies of “Jacks are Wild” are still sitting in the Cambridge, Mass., label’s warehouse, awaiting distribution to record stores all over the country.

Not only is this bureaucratic blunder costing Rounder thousands of dollars in potential revenues, it is impeding the Jacks’ chances for a much-deserved national breakthrough.

Cassettes now account for more than 25% of all album sales--and new LPs traditionally sell best during the first month or two of their release.

The ugly: Speaking of the Jacks, lead singer-guitarist-songwriter Buddy Blue has been intimating that, if more people don’t start coming out to his band’s frequent appearances around town, he’s going to shave his head.