S.D. Promoter Hopes Poll Will Snag SDSU Contract

Three concert promoters vying for exclusive booking rights to San Diego State University’s Open Air Theater and the not-yet-built Student Activity Center met the Jan. 3 deadline for submitting proposals. The winning bidder will have a lock on both the 4,800-seat amphitheater and the 12,000-seat arena--which is scheduled to open in 1992--for up to 18 years.

One of the contenders is Avalon Attractions of Los Angeles, which has held the amphitheater exclusive since 1984. The other two are Nederlander of California, also based in L.A., and San Diego’s Bill Silva Presents.

Hoping to one-up the others, or at least show he’s done his homework, Silva included in his proposal the results of a market research study he commissioned last fall to gauge “prevailing opinions and current attitudes” of SDSU students about amphitheater concerts, he said.

The study consists of questionnaires filled out by more than 100 students who regularly attend amphitheater concerts, a videotaped focus-group discussion, and taped interviews with members of the leading campus sorority and fraternity.

According to Silva’s “Confidential Report to San Diego State University,” students are “generally pleased” with amphitheater concerts, but feel there’s plenty of room for improvement.

Specifically, they’d like to see an increase in seating capacity, more variety in the type of acts, lower ticket prices, stronger on-campus concert promotion, and access to tickets before they go on sale to the public.

In addition, 71% of the respondents felt that the amphitheater promoter should be based in San Diego. To Silva, this implies that, if for no other reason, he’d win by default.

“The reason we did the study,” Silva said, “is that we felt the incumbents (Avalon) might have grown a little complacent because of their long relationship with the school, and we wanted to show that we have our fingers on the pulse of student needs. We felt we might learn something that would give us an edge in the proposal process, and I feel we did.”

David Swift, who runs Avalon’s San Diego office, dismisses the study as inconclusive and biased.

“They only talked to about 100 students, and I don’t think that represents a good cross-section of the campus,” Swift said. “As for the question of whether the promoter should be based in San Diego, what’s the point?”

The three proposals are being reviewed by an Associated Students’ committee. A decision is expected by the end of this month.

In 1977, Steppenwolf kingpin John Kay broke up the group he had founded a decade before and went solo. Two years later, he was alarmed to find maybe a half dozen bogus Steppenwolfs touring the country, each led by one of his former underlings.

So Kay put his solo career on hold and reclaimed the Steppenwolf name, exposing the imposters through extensive touring and vitriolic interviews with the press. Kay’s anger was perfectly understandable: It was his voice and his songwriting that had defined the group’s sound, and it was his legacy that was being exploited.

Just last year, another great American rock band’s name was commandeered by previous bit players. Gene Clark and Michael Clarke hit the road as the Byrds, even though their contributions to the seminal folk-rock group, which broke up in 1972, were minimal. Clark flew off after just two albums, and Clarke, well, he was merely the drummer.

Last week, the other three original Byrds--Roger McGuinn, Chris Hillman, and David Crosby--got together for a three-city mini-reunion tour in an attempt to establish their legal right to control the group name as a registered trademark.

Whether or not they succeed will ultimately depend on the courts. But for those who caught the trio’s performance Thursday night at the Bacchanal, they seemed to be hearing the real thing.

The 13-song, hourlong concert was not just a reunion for three-fifths of the original Byrds, but a resurrection of the original Byrds sound. Chestnuts like “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “Turn! Turn! Turn!,” “Eight Miles High,” and “So You Want to be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star” were dusted off, polished up and presented--in mint condition--to the sell-out crowd of 500, many of whom were still in diapers when these tunes were initially coined.

If the songs remain the same, it’s because the key ingredients are the same as well: McGuinn’s plaintive lead vocals and jingle-jangle 12-string guitar riffs, and Hillman and Crosby’s soaring vocal harmonies and absorbing bass-rhythm guitar interplays. Backing the trio were guitarist John Jorgenson and drummer Steve Duncan, both from Hillman’s Desert Rose Band.

Gene Clark and Michael Clarke, your services are no longer needed. Then again, they never really were.

LINER NOTES: Two blues greats are coming to town this week. Texas ‘shuffle’ bluesman Albert Collins--a cousin of Lightnin’ Hopkins and former sideman to Clarence (Gatemouth) Brown, Johnny (Guitar) Watson, and Little Richard--will appear Thursday night at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach.

On Friday night, the Bacchanal will host Bobby (Blue) Bland, one of the fathers of modern soul singing. Bland is an alumnus of the Beale Streeters, an informal group of Memphis blues musicians from the early 1950s whose other members included B.B. King and Johnny Ace.