SAN DIEGO VETSAID WAS CONCERT TO REMEMBER
How unprecedented was Sunday night’s VetsAid 2023 —The Concert for Our Veterans, which was headlined by Rock & Roll Hall of Famers Joe Walsh, Stephen Stills and Jeff Lynne? Let us count just some of the ways.
It was the first rock concert in memory at Chula Vista’s 25-year-old North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre to open with the Marine Band San Diego. The brassy ensemble, which performed the national anthem, “The Stars & Stripes Forever” and “The Marines’ Hymn,” took to the stage after a recording was played of President John F. Kennedy’s sobering 1961 Veteran’s Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery.
It was the first concert at the nearly 20,000-capacity venue where several rock legends — who each rose to prominence during the intensely polarizing height of the anti-Vietnam war movement in the late 1960s and early ’70s — warmly thanked U.S. military veterans for their service.
“God bless America!” Walsh told the audience after a spirited version of “Rocky Mountain Way,” his penultimate selection.
It was the also first rock concert in memory at the sprawling amphitheater to feature live and videotaped interviews with veterans and representatives of various nonprofit organizations that aid veterans. More than a dozen of those organizations, including Veterans Village of San Diego and Honor Flight San Diego, were beneficiaries of Sunday’s concert. The only misfire came in a lengthy commercial for General Atomics that, with its emphasis on Predator drones, seemed distinctly at odds with VetsAid’s admirable goals to assist veterans in need.
The six-hour event drew an audience of 7,800, plus a yet-to-be-announced number of paying live-stream viewers. Additional support came from such high-profile
donors as billionaire music entrepreneur Jimmy Iovine, actors Tom Hanks and Dustin Hoffman, former San Diego music talent manager Lisa Braude and Ringo Starr, who is Walsh’s brother-in-law.
Equally notable, it was the first concert at the amphitheater — and, likely, the last — that featured such varied acts as Walsh, Flaming Lips, the Lynneled Electric Light Orchestra, Lucius and the aforementioned Marine Band San Diego. All of them donated their services to raise money for VetsAid, which in its first six years has disbursed $3 million to nonprofits that aid veterans.
For added hometown flavor, before introducing Walsh, San Diego native Jack Tempchin performed a stirring solo acoustic version of “Peaceful Easy Feeling.” He wrote it in El Centro and two San Diego neighborhoods, Old Town and Hillcrest. In 1972, the song — the only selection surprise guest Tempchin played Sunday — became one of the most enduring hits ever recorded by the Eagles, the storied band Walsh, now 75, joined in 1975.
The veteran guitarist and singer-songwriter co-founded VetsAid in 2017 with his wife, Marjorie. During a pre-concert press conference with her backstage, Walsh noted that both of their fathers were
veterans. His was a pilot who died in a plane crash off Okinawa a few months before Walsh’s second birthday. Hers was a bombardier who was shot down twice and earned a purple heart.
“Seeing as rock ’n’ roll is the thing I do best — and the only thing I can do — I started VetsAid with Marjorie to pay back (the veterans),” Walsh said.
“We start planning for each VetsAid a year in advance,” Marjorie added.
That planning paid off well on Sunday at the event’s seventh annual edition, where temperatures dipped into the 50s by the end of the night. It was the first iteration to be held at an outdoor venue. (The amphitheater was chosen after initial plans to hold VetsAid at Snapdragon Stadium fell through.)
No matter the location, musical highlights punctuated much of the marathon concert, beginning with the sparkling opening set by Lucius, the Los Angeles pop-rock band led by singers Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig.
The Flaming Lips followed with an eight-song set the combined such songs as the buoyant “She Don’t Use Jelly” and the psychedelia-celebrating “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (Parts 1 and 2)” with an array of arresting visual treats. Confetti! Giant inflatable eyeballs! More confetti! Streamers! Giant inflatable pink robots! Large inflatable red lips! Even more confetti!
All this would have made the subsequent set by The War On Drugs seem anticlimactic under the best of circumstances. The Philadelphia band performed reasonably well as an ensemble. But some of its selections, in particular the meandering “Under the Pressure,” took too long to go nowhere in particular. And the stylistic debt that lead singer and lead guitarist Adam Granduicel owes to Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne and Neil Young would be more tolerable if his songs added something of note to them. But they rarely did.
That made the crowdpleasing set by Electric Light Orchestra, which followed, all the more instructive. Lynne, the only original member still on board, has always acknowledged how inspired his songs are by the work of The Beatles, Phil Spector, various Motown Records’ greats, and more.
But Lynne has expertly built on them to create a distinctive blend. And his triumphant, 10-song set with ELO — the group’s first performance since 2019 — had the crowd on its feet from start (“Evil Woman” and “Do Ya”) to finish (“Mr. Blue Sky” and “Roll Over Beethoven”).
Better still was Walsh, whose eight-piece band featured San Diego-bred bass great Nathan East.
From his opening number, “In the City,” to his rollicking finale, “All Night Long,” Walsh delivered his vocals and biting guitar work with vigor and infectious verve. He made every note count, whether rocking out on “Funk 49” or gliding through the sinuous reggae grooves on “Life’s Been Good.” And when Walsh and Stills teamed up for sizzling renditions of Stills’ “For What It’s Worth” and “Love the One You’re With,” VetsAid was transformed from a memorable event into an unforgettable one.