Qualcomm Stadium

Guns N’ Roses 8/22/16

gnr

My first memory of Guns N’ Roses is listening to Appetite for Destruction in my fifth grade class. Our teacher used to let us kids bring in a cassette to listen to on Fridays and a kid named Ken brought it in (I think he borrowed it from his older sister). Back around the same time my parents used to take advantage of deals through companies BMG or Columbia House where they would buy one album and get twelve for free. They ended up ordering Appetite for Destruction and I ended up stealing it from their collection. Before Nirvana came along GNR was one of only a handful of bands I even cared about and they were pretty much at the top of that small handful.

Fast forward to my freshman year in high school right about the time the Use Your Illusion albums came out when GNR was touring with Faith No More and Metallica. I remember this being the first concert ever wanting to see but I was still too young to drive and did not really have any older friends that could drive or money for that matter. One of the hottest girls in our school was a senior when I was a freshman and I can still see her walking down the hall in the t-shirt she had gotten from wherever she saw the tour. Within a few years GNR as the world knew them broke up and long story short I never got to see GNR…until now. So after many years of feuding Axl, Slash and Duff set aside their differences to do a tour…a very lucrative tour.

So it was announced that GNR was to play Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego as the last stop of a very limited tour. Even though the show was on a Monday this was still super convenient to me since I live within walking distance of Qualcomm Stadium. So I randomly get a text from my buddy one Saturday letting me know that there is a presale for tickets but you must purchase a fan club membership for $49 to get in on that action. All telling it ended up being $250 for two tickets that I thought at the time were actually fairly good seats on the floor level. Once my friend Larry living abroad caught wind he shot me a message saying something along the lines of “get me a ticket or I’ll fucking kill you.” I thought worst-case scenario I could sell the other ticket if I needed to but it ended up being a nightmare. Since I thought both my tickets were spoken for I had Bob purchase two tickets as well. Larry ended up not coming and now we had two extra tickets to get rid of in a very saturated market. At the end of the day we ended up selling Bob’s two tickets to friends of ours for $40 each and kept mine to use as they were the better of two pairs…but they turned out to be Club level, not floor.

After waiting for what seemed like forever Bob and I walked out of the nearby Liquor Store with a sandwich in hand and headed over to the parking lot to tailgate. There were a handful of people we were supposed to meet up with but I had went swimming with my non-waterproof phone the weekend before so…we just finished our beer and sandwiches and went in to see openers The Cult. We sat down and after a minute I realized that we had accidentally gotten into the Plaza level seating. About this time we saw several people walking over a gate to get onto the field level so we figured why not? Now we only had one security guard to get through to get onto the floor. Easier said than done. Even if we could figure out a way down to the floor everyone down there was wearing a bright yellow plastic wristband. Right about this time a guy just went right over the port-o-potty roof and onto the floor. We thought this was going to be our only way down but all the lights were still bright so we decided to wait until GNR actually started playing. We did not need to wait long. About three songs in the security guard at the end of our row abandoned post and we booked it. We tried to just blend in at the back of everyone standing on the floor and apparently were successful because we never got kicked out. Some of my favorites were “It’s So Easy,” “Double Talkin’ Jive,” “Civil War,” “Coma,” and “November Rain.” Axl’s near constant wardrobe changes were comical but GNR was firing on all cylinders and clocked in at just under three hours, which officially makes this the longest performance I have ever seen. Badass.

Foreigner 12/16/10

My Mom is a very hard person to shop for. Her interests and hobbies are close to non-existent so every time her birthday or Christmas rolls around I always stress about what to get her. I think I was experiencing one such dilemma when I remembered she had told me at one point that the first concert she ever went to was Foreigner. This gave me the idea to buy her Foreigner’s greatest hits album called Records. The problem was there were very few places to buy an old Foreigner greatest hits CD so I had to settle for a used copy I bought off of eBay. Before I gave it to her I threw it in my CD player and immediately thought “hey I know this song.” This continued through all 10 songs. Not only did I know the songs but I really liked them so I went through a little Foreigner phase because it was like discovering a new band.

Fast forward to December of 2010. The Chargers were hosting the 49ers for Thursday Night Football and Ingrid and I decided this would be our annual Chargers game to attend. Only the day of the game did I learn from one of my classmates at San Diego State University that Foreigner was to play out in the parking lot before the game for FREE! Jackpot! I really like the voice of Lou Gramm but a brain tumor forced him from the band in 1997 so the only original member still in the lineup was guitarist/chief songwriter Mick Jones. Kelly Hanson had been the singer for five years by this point and filled in nicely. They played a seven-song set and it was awesome! It didn’t matter that the band was different because the songs were still the same awesome songs they had always been. The whole band sang the Star Spangled Banner at the game that night and the Chargers won. I would say this was a good night.

SETLIST: Double Vision, Head Games, Cold As Ice, Feels Like the First Time, Urgent, I Wanna Know What Love Is, Hot Blooded

Stone Temple Pilots 7/27/08

Twice in the same month? You bet your sweet ass. For some reason concert promoters thought it would be a good idea to have some concerts this summer in what was essentially a small practice field in the southwest corner of the parking lot of the stadium where the Chargers played. They touted it as “Concerts on the Green” at Qualcomm and the space probably held about 5,000 people. The show was general admission, which meant Sam, Marvin, Bob and I were free to roam as we pleased which of course meant up close in the action.

Wolfmother opened and was awesome, especially when they played “Joker & the Thief.” They were still touring behind their eponymous debut album released nearly three years before this. I am continually amazed at two and three piece bands.

As for STP it was essentially the same show I saw earlier in the month (sans mushrooms); great energy, great set list, great performance. Weiland seemed to be a little more riled up but STP did have a history with San Diego. At one point during “Sex Type Thing” Weiland climbed the scaffolding, which is always a crowd pleaser.

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Street Scene 8/5/06

This was the second year in a row that Street Scene was held in the Qualcomm Stadium parking lot. It also happened to be the same time I was scheduled to spend a week in the Pacific Northwest for my Mom’s wedding and my 10-year high school reunion. Sometime after I booked my flight to go to Oregon/Washington it was announced that Tool would be headlining Street Scene. I was never all that pumped about going to the high school reunion so ultimately I decided I would rather see four dudes that I had not seen for almost five years (Tool) rather than see a bunch of people that I had not seen for 10 years. Street Scene was Friday the 4^th and Saturday the 5^th but I came back just for Saturday.

I remember coming home to a dead battery in my car since it had been parked for a week. After I convinced my then roommate Macy to drop me off I got to the concert with just enough time to find my friends Marvin and Bob, have a beer with them and get over to see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. They were touring in support of their new album Show Your Bones that was released about four and a half months earlier. This was my second time seeing them, with the first time being about two years earlier right after I first moved to San Diego. They were as great as they were the first time but now had another album of songs to choose from.

SETLIST: Gold Lion, Fancy, Phenomena, Mysteries, Honeybear, The Sweets, Maps, Y Control, Date With the Night

It was convenient that Tool played the same stage as the Yeah Yeah Yeahs since we were already in good position at that stage. This was my fifth time seeing Tool but as stated earlier I had not seen them for about five years and now they had a new album in 10,000 Days that was released just about three months prior to this. Everything started off well but then all hell broke loose with the crowd near the end of their second song “The Pot.” People were being trampled near the front to the point where Maynard was telling people to move back during the song and then they ended up stopping the show for about 10 minutes until people moved back. Apparently 15 people ending up getting seriously hurt. I think if Maynard would not have stopped the show that count would have been much higher. I got separated from Marvin and Bob but apparently Bob ended up having sex in the audience. I am not sure how that is possible with people on all sides of you but the crowd was very raucous and Bob is not known to be a lying braggart.

SETLIST: Stinkfist, The Pot, Forty-Six &2, Jambi, Schism, Sober, Lateralus, Vicarious, AEnema

Article about 15 fans injured during Tool

Street Scene 7/29/05

For reasons unknown to the author, Street Scene was moved from the actual streets of downtown San Diego to the parking lot of Qualcomm Stadium in Mission Valley for 2005. I do not remember why I ended up going by myself but I remember that I did. While there were a handful of bands there that I liked, I was really there for the White Stripes, who I had never seen. There were three different stages set up on the west side of the parking lot with only a slight overlap in set times, so you pretty much had to choose one of three bands to watch at any given time. The first band I checked out was Kasabian after a recommendation from my friend Ben. They were alright but did not do much for me. The next band up that I wanted to watch was Garbage, who had just released the album Bleed Like Me in April. I had only seen them one other time about three years prior and they had not lost a beat. Shirley Manson commanded the stage and the band was tight. I was able to watch the entire set before I headed back over to the stage farthest from where I was to see the Black Eyed Peas, but not before stopping to watch a little of Social Distortion’s set on the way. Apparently 311 and Snoop Dog were at this Street Scene but they must have been playing at the same time as someone else because I did not see them at all. So back to the Black Eyed Peas…they had just released the album Monkey Business back in May, their second album with Fergie. I’m not sure how I ended up with this album but I did and it was a good album to listen to when I had girls over (instead of blasting them with heavy metal). I wanted to check them out because I actually liked them but I also wanted to already be at the stage the White Stripes would be performing at so I would have a good spot without having to fight for it. So I made my way over to the stage where the Black Eyed Peas should have already been playing but nobody was on stage so we waited…and waited…and waited some more. I believe they ended up coming onstage about 45 minutes late. Rumor has it that Fergie was so drunk that they could not get her onstage. Her pissing her pants onstage did not help her dispel this rumor. Seriously, she pissed her pants onstage and I was there to see it! By this point all I wanted to do was smoke the joint I brought with me and see the White Stripes but the delay pushed their set back as well.

After what seemed like an eternity Jack and Meg White finally took the stage and I was able to fire up my doobie. They were touring for their new album Get Behind Me Satan that was released the previous month. I first heard the White Stripes when I lived in Portland through a couple of friends right before “Seven Nation Army” got super popular. They were worth the wait. Looking back at this show I am still astonished at how much music was coming from just two people. Jack White was bouncing from guitar to keyboards to marimbas and back again. He is one of the best guitar players I have ever seen. Just strangled the guitar. Meg was not the most fancy drummer I have ever seen but her playing provided the solid backbeat that the music needed. One of my favorite moments was when they played a cover of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene.” It was so beautiful it gave me goose bumps. Another favorite was “Ball And Biscuit.” Simply amazing.