‘A Tribute to the Beatles’ to Play Vista Amphitheatre

Promoter Michael Goldman’s Music Futures company officially entered the local market Friday when he announced his first area concert. In keeping with his penchant for producing outdoor events, Goldman has booked the traveling show, “Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles,” into Vista’s Moonlight Amphitheatre for April 4. The opening act will be Dwight Adams, former vocalist with San Diego’s Dr. Feelgood and the Interns of Love, who will perform a tribute to Otis Redding.

The announcement was made at a combination news conference and parking lot party that also served as the public grand-opening of the Music Futures office in Cardiff. The name of the tribute-

concert proved ironic, as Goldman welcomed media representatives, dozens of curious onlookers and even another local promoter under threatening, late-afternoon rain clouds. Appropriately, entertainment was provided by the local band Fish and the Seaweeds.

Goldman, a Northern California promoter who moved to this area a year ago after a four-year hiatus from the concert business, is seeking to establish a local beachhead by presenting music events with extra-dimensional appeal. Although the amphitheater’s existing concession service precludes Goldman from bringing in the more exotic food booths that were a feature of his outdoor shows in Northern California, he claims the venue’s physical attributes are compatible with his emphasis on ambience.

“It’s really a gorgeous setting,” Goldman said Monday. “In addition to 352 fixed seats, there are terraces of perfect lawn that encourage picnic blankets and that sort of thing. The stage is big enough to accommodate any of the major acts I’ve produced in the past, yet, because the natural bowl’s maximum capacity is 4,000 to 5,000, you maintain a certain intimacy. I can’t believe this place hasn’t been used regularly for concerts.”

Goldman and the amphitheater have an unwritten, non- exclusive agreement that will enable Music Futures to produce other shows there in the spring and fall (the venue’s summer schedule is taken up by theatrical productions). In the meantime, the promoter will continue to pursue other concert acts for other area venues.

Goldman hopes to draw as many as 3,000 to his debut show, which he is presenting in conjunction with North County’s KKOS-FM and San Diego’s KSDO-FM. Ultimately, of course, attendance will be determined by the public’s interest in seeing and hearing the featured acts.

Of Rain’s five members, the four onstage performers are veterans of the Broadway-bred “Beatlemania” show that drew large audiences in the late ‘70s (the “fifth Beatle” stands offstage playing the extra instrumentation demanded by the Beatles’ latter-day, “studio” period). As with the traveling “Beatlemania” show, the musicians re-create the look and sound of the Fab Four through the various stages of their development.

Tickets for “Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles”--priced at $10 in advance and $12 on the day of the show--are on sale now at all TicketMaster outlets and at the Moonlight Amphitheatre box office, 1200 Vale Terrace, in Brengle Terrace Park, Vista. For directions or more information, call 724-2110. To charge tickets, call 278-TIXS.

GRACE NOTES: The blokes who book Winston’s inadvertently ran into a little separation-of-temple-and-gig problem by scheduling Peter Himmelman to perform March 18 at the Ocean Beach club. That date falls one day before Purim, the Jewish holiday that commemorates Esther’s thwarting of a plot by the Persian minister Haman to massacre Jews in the 5th Century, BC.

Singer-songwriter Himmelman, who is Bob Dylan’s son-in-law, is an Orthodox Jew. Because the Jewish day runs from sundown to sundown, Himmelman felt it would be improper to perform in public on the eve of Purim.

When Himmelman’s agent discovered the snafu, it was too late to reschedule. The L.A.-based agent allowed that, because Himmelman also cannot travel between Friday sundown and Saturday sundown (Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath), booking shows for the musician presents special problems. As this column went to press, it appeared as though San Diego would have to do without the Minneapolis native’s talents on this tour.

Local video archivist David Peck, mentioned here a few weeks back when he provided rare footage to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Awards show, had a phone chat with none other than the Godfather of Soul last week. Peck, who had worked on the James Brown documentary, “The Man, the Music, the Message,” sent Brown’s office in Augusta, Ga., about six hours of footage of The Hardest-Working Man in Show Business. Included was a clip of Brown performing before a very agitated crowd at Boston Gardens the night of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. Duly grateful for the unexpected gift, Brown told Peck, “I feel good--I’ve been around for four generations, and I hope to be around for four more.”

BOOKINGS: (Tickets for the following concerts will be sold at all TicketMaster outlets unless otherwise specified.)

On Tuesday country artist Bobby Bare will play two shows at Maverick’s, 11377 Woodside Ave., Santee-Lakeside, (tickets available now at Maverick’s only, $10 in advance, $12 at the door, 448-8778). On March 28, highly regarded triple-threat (harmonica, guitar, vocals) Robert Lucas will play a solo acoustic set, then lead his electric band, Luke and the Locomotives, at Blind Melons in Pacific Beach. . . . The Hard Corps has dropped out of the March 28 show at Iguanas featuring Ice-T with Bodycount. The new opening act is Eye & I. . . . A semi-casual revue calling itself “A Bunch of Songwriters Hits the Road,” and featuring Midge Ure, Darden Smith, Chip Taylor, Don Henry and local product Rosie Flores, will play Sound FX on April 16 (on sale Friday at 10 a.m.). . . . Van Halen will play the Sports Arena on May 2, with opener Baby Animals. Tickets go on sale Saturday at 10 a.m., with lineups for random-numbered wristbands at 8 a.m. at the Sports Arena box office. (No lineups will be allowed before 8 a.m.) Wristbands will be distributed at 9 a.m. at all other TicketMaster outlets.

CRITIC’S CHOICE: BLUES’ HARMONIC MAGIC

For a lot of blues enthusiasts, mouth-harpist James Cotton’s deep, muscular tone and evocative phrasing defines the role of the harmonica in this music.

A Delta Blues veteran whose career includes stints with Sonny Boy Williamson (his boyhood idol), Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters, the Mississippi-born Cotton has become one of the finest live performers in the idiom. At 57, his reedy, expressive voice and harmonica are nearly interchangeable. He’ll play Blind Melons (710 Garnet Ave.) at 9 p.m. Friday. For information, call 483-7844.