Concerts May Again Rock S.D. Stadium

If rock promoters and the general manager of San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium have their way, major outdoor rock concerts will return to San Diego this summer after an absence of almost five years.

“Let’s call it a very good possibility,” Bill Wilson, stadium general manager, said Thursday.

Wilson plans to recommend to the Stadium Authority Board that rock be reintroduced, calling it a major revenue producer that the city-owned stadium can’t pass up. Rock shows requiring seating on the field have been banned since 1983.

If the Stadium Authority Board agrees with Wilson, the matter moves to the City Council for approval. According to George Mitrovich, an eight-year member of the Stadium Authority Board who recently left office, that is by no means a lock.

“The city’s biggest concert ever was the Rolling Stones in 1981,” Mitrovich said, “and we almost lost that. It went to the City Council, then-City Manager Ray Blair argued against it, and it passed by one vote. It then became the biggest one-day moneymaker in the city’s history.”

Bill Silva, head of Bill Silva Presents, the city’s top rock promoter, said, “It would put San Diego back on the map of pop culture. It’s been an outcast the last few years.”

Silva said San Diego has missed such major outdoor acts as Bruce Springsteen, Journey, Styx, Rush, Madonna, Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead.

The “dreaded ban,” as Silva called it--San Diego’s “scarlet A” in the world of rock--came after a KGB Sky Show that produced twin controversies in 1983: An alleged rape in a men’s room that authorities said later was not a rape but which received major publicity, and extensive damage to the grass field.

After a game with the Dallas Cowboys, soon after the Sky Show, then-San Diego Chargers Coach Don Coryell bitterly complained that the field was the worst he had seen in several decades of coaching football.

Shortly afterward, the stadium’s general manager and groundskeeper were fired. Wilson was brought in from the Rose Bowl in 1984, and he hired Brian Bossard from Cleveland as groundskeeper.

Many felt the biggest casualties, however, were the rock shows themselves. The last one seen at the stadium was the ’83 Sky Show.

“The Padres and Chargers used the controversy to (complain) about the playing field, when it was mainly a groundskeeping problem to begin with,” Silva said. “Concerts were an easy

scapegoat, so they got axed, along with the other two guys.”

Silva called Springsteen’s 1985 “Born in the U.S.A.” tour a “major loss” to San Diego rock. Springsteen wanted to play the stadium but was told he couldn’t, Silva said. Instead, he added more dates to his appearance at the Los Angeles Coliseum.

Silva said Springsteen could have been as big a payoff as the Rolling Stones, who drew 65,000 screaming fans in 1981 and produced a one-day net payoff of more than $250,000.

A Springsteen appearance this summer is not totally out of the question.

“I can’t comment on that,” Wilson said Thursday.

Super Bowl Debts

“I’d love it, but it isn’t likely,” Silva said. “He’ll apparently be playing South America during June and July, when the stadium has this open window for rock. More likely, though, is Bruce coming back to San Diego sometime in the future. Now it’s a possibility--as opposed to an impossibility.

“If the council acts on Wilson’s recommendation . . . such acts will come here on a regular basis.”

Wilson said the stadium needs rock ‘n’ roll because of an operating deficit approaching $5 million. He said the Super Bowl dramatically increased operating debts.

“I’d love to have a Super Bowl every year,” he said, “because it brings the city about $140 million. But the stadium gave away the farm.

“First of all, the National Football League got the thing rent-free. Then we had to buy the temporary seating. That was maybe $800,000, which came right out of the operating budget. I love the Super Bowl--please, don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have it every year--but it didn’t do much for my revenue picture.”

Wilson admitted that a Springsteen concert would go a long way toward brightening the darkness at the edge of the budget. But while The Boss is a long shot, a Monsters of Rocktour is a distinct possibility for June or July, when the Padres baseball team embarks on a lengthy road trip.

Silva said Monsters of Rock would feature a heavy-metal brigade--Van Halen, Scorpions, Metallica, Dokken and Kingdom Come.

Wilson thinks he can persuade the City Council to approve rock.

He said Bossard, an old hand at handling rock crowds in a previous post at Cleveland Municipal Stadium, had assured him that a high-tech geotextile surface could cover and protect the grass during the concert, even from hordes of born-to-run teen-agers.

As further protection, Wilson said, future concerts would carry only reserved seating, as opposed to the “general-admission mayhem” of the past. At the Stones show, tens of thousands stood, danced and finally rushed the stage for a peek at lead singer Mick Jagger.

No one sat--the field contained no chairs.

Wilson said that in the future only those holding tickets to a seat would be permitted on the field.

He said police and private security would be increased to reduce the likelihood of unsavory incidents repeating themselves. He blamed “the massive publicity” after the alleged rape in 1983 as being one of the main reasons for the ban.

Wilson said he was sold on Bossard’s plan for a geotextile covering, having seen its effects after a Madonna concert at Anaheim Stadium last summer.

“The field wasn’t damaged at all,” Wilson said. “It’ll look kind of funny for a while, but it bounces back fast. It won’t be irreparably damaged like it was before. With geotextile, it shouldn’t be damaged at all.”

Mayor Maureen O’Connor’s spokesman, Paul Downey, said, “Her concerns are, obviously, to make sure the field is protected for other tenants. But she’d be very interested in any attempt to raise money for the city.

“This is a very difficult time for the city. Looking at next year’s budget, we see a lot of services needing to be filled and not much money with which to do it. We can’t come out and totally support this without looking at Wilson’s proposal first-hand, but we’d certainly be very interested in any way to raise money for the city.”

Silva said “an open-door policy” for rock could net the stadium as much as $300,000 to $500,000 a year. He said it had netted almost that much in the past.

Wilson conceded another motive for lifting the ban was the substandard performance in recent years of both the Chargers and Padres.

“The stadium is not in the black,” he said. “But then, we’re not programmed to be. We hope to someday be (in the black), but we need a little help from our tenants. Winning seasons and bigger crowds would help. In the meantime, we need a return of rock ‘n’ roll.