AT SNAPDRAGON STADIUM, BUFFETT AND MRAZ BRING THE BEACH PARTY INLAND
Mission Valley venue delivers high audio quality in 1st concert
Jimmy Buffett and Jason Mraz have each performed numerous times in San Diego over the years — Buffett since the early 1970s and native Virginian-turned-Oceanside resident Mraz since the late 1990s. But Saturday night was the first instance in memory at which either played second fiddle here to a large, new, outdoor concrete edifice.
So, take a bow, Snapdragon Stadium, which opened last September as the home of San Diego State University’s Aztecs football team — and this weekend made its largely promising debut as a concert venue.
“I don’t usually wear a suit, but this is such a special occasion I had to dapper it up a bit,” said Mraz, 45, prior to performing the buoyant, reggae-infused “Wise Woman,” the fourth song in his engaging, hourlong set. “I thought this day would never get here, but I’m glad it did.”
Longtime Buffett collaborator Mac McAnally was, in fact, the first artist to perform at Saturday’s concert. The show had been pushed back from its original date last October, after Buffett was hospitalized for undisclosed reasons.
Now 76, Buffett was in good spirits as he took to the stage and warmly greeted the audience, then introduced McAnally, who did an engaging, five-song opening set with percussionist Erik Darken.
“We finally made it!” Buffett, clad in a track warm-up suit, told the cheering audience. “Thank you for waiting.”
Buffett and Mraz delivered crowd-pleasing sets with their respective bands, each of which performed with a winning combination of polished precision and festive celebration.
Mraz and his brassy band performed tender ballads, funk-fueled romps and the disco-styled “I Feel Like Dancing” with equal poise and verve. He gave some extended solos to his musicians — something rarely heard in a stadium setting — and tenor saxophonist Carlos Sosa and guitarist Molly Miller were especially
impressive.
Buffett opened with the tropical-flavored “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes,” the title track of the 1977 album that propelled him from cult status to stardom. He concluded a bit more than 90 minutes later with an animated version of Crosby, Stills & Nash’s “Southern Cross.”
In between came 16 other songs, including such favorites as “Fins,” “A Pirate Looks at 40,” “Cheeseburger in Paradise” and the inevitable “Margaritaville.”
Buffett fondly recalled his first gigs here, 40 years ago, “at a coffee shop at SDSU” — the now-defunct Back Door — and sprinkled in a number of local
references during his set. (Mraz in turn gave a shoutout to Java Joe’s, the Ocean Beach coffee house where he got his start.)
The concert’s promoters declined to disclose the attendance, but it looked like close to a full house for the 28,000capacity show at Snapdragon. The new venue is at the same Mission Valley site that once housed San Diego Stadium, San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, Qualcomm Stadium and SDCCU Stadium — to cite the four successive names of the larger stadium that used to stand there.
The sightlines were good from most of the nearly dozen locations I watched from. And
the sound was much better than at any concert I can recall attending at the previous stadium.
The crisp, well-balanced audio mix may also reflect the skill of Buffett and Mraz’s respective sound engineers. They, thankfully, resisted the urge to turn everything up to 11, which has long been an unfortunate tendency for far too many stadium music acts.
Where Snapdragon faltered Saturday was in the extremely long wait times for concertgoers to purchase food and, more often, drinks.
While there’s no known scientific study, so far, that confirms Buffett’s fans consume significantly more alcoholic beverages than college football game attendees, the inordinately long lines at his concert here suggest that may well be the case.
Then again, by the end of the night, a couple seated in front of this reviewer posed for a selfie with 10 empty plastic cognac glasses that they had consumed during the concert.
And Buffett, a billionaire whose empire includes more than one alcohol-related product, was happy to toast the crowd in song, at one point ad-libbing the lyric: “What would Jimmy Buffett do right now? Go to the Belly Up and buy you a drink!”