Annual Beach Boys-Padres Double Header Bailed Out

For a while it was looking as if there wouldn’t be a Beach Boys-Padres doubleheader at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium this year, as there had been every year since 1982.

The popular event, consisting of a baseball game followed by a concert and generally held in May, was in jeopardy due to the possibility of a baseball strike and scheduling conflicts that resulted in the Beach Boys being booked, instead, into the San Diego Sports Arena on May 1 for a special Texaco promotion.

But last Monday, promoter Mike Fahn, who has produced the annual stadium pairing since 1984, surprised many skeptics when

he announced that a Beach Boys/Padres date had, in fact, been confirmed: Sunday, Sept. 9.

“There was quite a bit of doubt earlier when the Beach Boys’ and the Padres’ schedules conflicted and wouldn’t allow us to produce the show in the traditional early May,” Fahn said. “But we continued to pursue it just as we did in 1987, when a similar situation took place in terms of conflicts of scheduling and we did the show in October.

“We all tried very hard to make it work, and now the tradition will continue. And it really is a tradition: People have been asking me about this ever since the last one was over.”

The owners of the Pink Panther in Bay Park and the Casbah in Middletown, two popular hangouts for trendy local rock ‘n’ rollers, are throwing a Cinco de Mayo party Saturday at the Mission Bay Ballroom in the Bahia Resort Hotel.

The music alone is reason enough for going. The featured attraction is El Vez, the self-proclaimed “Mexican Elvis,” whose repertoire of 30-plus Presley classics with a Latino twist includes “You Ain’t Nothing But a Chihuahua,” “In the Barrio,” and a mariachi-style arrangement of “Love Me Tender.” Unlike his debut San Diego appearance last February at the Casbah, El Vez--in real life, Los Angeles pop-art gallery owner, and Chula Vista native, Robert Lopez--will be accompanied by a full backup band, the Memphis Mariachis. Also on the bill: the Strolling Mariachi Brothers--consisting of Peter Verbrugge, co-owner of the two clubs, and Dennis Borlek and Steve Foth of Carnivorous Lunar Activity--and local psychedelic funksters Daddy Longlegs.

If you’re more into the traditional stuff, consider attending the Cinco de Mayo Fiesta, Saturday and Sunday at the Old Town State Historic Park.

Among the performers will be 7-year-old Carlitos, singing traditional and contemporary Mexican ballads; Huayucaltia, a Los Angeles group playing Latin American folk music; and local salsa bands Afro Rumba and the Benny Holman Latin Big Band Explosion.

LINER NOTES: Just added to this year’s Concerts by the Bay series at Humphrey’s on Shelter Island: Wynton Marsalis, July 22; Regina Belle, Aug. 26; George Benson, Sept. 13 and 14, and Acoustic Alchemy, Sept. 21. . . .

The latest additions to San Diego Folk Heritage’s ongoing series of folk concerts at the Del Mar Shores Auditorium: Paraguayan harpists Ed and Tina Lange with Orange County folk trio Blackthorn, May 12, and Ronnie Gilbert, a founding member of legendary folk group the Weavers, May 19. . . .

Tickets go on sale Friday at 3 p.m. for Midnight Oil’s June 21 appearance at San Diego State University’s Open Air Theater, and Saturday at 10 a.m. for Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band’s June 18 concert at the Open Air Theater and Joe Cocker and Stevie Ray Vaughan’s June 10 show at the San Diego Sports Arena. Then, on May 11 at 10 a.m., tickets go on sale for David Byrne’s June 7 appearance at the Starlight Bowl in Balboa Park. . . . Look for a San Diego show by Depeche Mode at some big outdoor venue, sometime in late July. . . .

This week’s concerts: Dirty Looks with Outlaw Blood, tonight at the Bacchanal in Kearny Mesa; Eric Clapton, Thursday at the Sports Arena; Testament with Nuclear Assault and Savatage, Thursday at the California Theater downtown; the Lloyd Jones Struggle, Thursday at the Bacchanal; Bullet Lavolta, Thursday at the Casbah in Middletown; the Lettermen, Friday at the East County Performing Arts Center in El Cajon; the U-Krew, Friday at Club Oh! in Tijuana; Julio Iglesias, Saturday at the Starlight Bowl; the Blasters with the James Harman Band and the Forbidden Pigs, Saturday at Iguanas in Tijuana; Foghat, Sunday at the Bacchanal; Exene Cervenka with Brothers Figaro, May 7 at the Bacchanal; and the Sir Douglas Quintet with Flaco Jimenez, May 7 at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach.