Tag archives: Santa Barbara Bowl

The next week of Santa Barbara Bowl’s September surge showcases with Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue with Big Boi on September 5, the final date of Isla Vista-born Iration & Pepper’s Daytrippin in Paradise Summer 2024 Tour on September 8, alternative rock trio Wallows on September 9, and Palo Alto singer-songwriter Remi Wolf on September […]

Natalie Merchant, the New York-bred singer-songwriter who a lifetime ago was the lead singer and lyricist for the alt.rock faves 10,000 Maniacs (1981-93) before embarking on an even more successful solo career, returns to town to perform at the Santa Barbara Bowl on May 23. Merchant’s latest album, 2023’s Keep Your Courage, continues to prove […]

Westmont’s 63rd annual Spring Sing at the Santa Barbara Bowl on April 6 was filled with singing, dancing, acting, and hilarity. Students from each residence hall produced musical skits using the phrase “Out of Order” and competed for prizes and bragging rights.  Spring Sing is the college’s longest running tradition and involves more students than […]

Bubbly show woman and former Broadway actress Janet Adderley’s students from four of her five school’s locations – Santa Barbara, Pacific Palisades, Austin, and New Orleans – were front and center when local rock icon Kenny Loggins, 75, performed the sold-out final show of his “This Is It!” tour at the 4,500-seat Santa Barbara Bowl. […]

The longtime Santa Barbara-based singer-songwriter/rockstar Kenny Loggins retiring from the road is like the pop music equivalent of final go-rounds of baseball stars like Miguel Cabrera or Albert Pujols, except by a factor of more than two as Loggins’ touring career is more than twice as long as any baseball player. Plus, rather than receiving […]

Irvine’s indie-rock sensation Young the Giant plays the Santa Barbara Bowl, with Milky Chance and Rosa Linn as opening acts for the 6 pm concert on August 18, the last before a three-week hiatus at the amphitheater. That same night also brings a SOhO date with the Long Beach Dub Allstars, who formed from the […]

After a bit of a mid-summer lull, the Santa Barbara Bowl is back in action, and exudes eclecticism in its quartet of concerts this week. The August 4 show is a conglomeration of its own as co-headliners Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue and Ziggy Marley are supported by Mavis Staples and the Robert Randolph Band […]

The Black Keys saunter onto the Santa Barbara Bowl stage on the heels of their latest album, 2022’s Dropout Boogie. The garage rock/raw blues duo, with singer-guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney, was founded in Akron, Ohio, more than two decades ago. They saw their commercial breakthrough with the studio album and hit single […]

The 61st annual Westmont’s Spring Sing, a student-performed variety show and competition between residence halls, was back and in person at the Santa Barbara Bowl April 1. It is the longest running tradition on campus and involves more students than any other college event.  For the first time, the Global Leadership Center (GLC) won top […]

It’s no secret that Montecito … has its secrets. Many of the town’s unprepossessing burghers, they of the shopworn André Rieu tee shirt and ill-fitting cargo pants, have hidden lives as movers, shakers, and candlestick makers (so to speak), their “gee whiz” dowdiness a performative feint to distract us from their collective, red-carpeted alias. One […]

Very few artists of any genre have been able to remain relevant anywhere near as long as Pat Metheny, the guitarist who launched his recording career 45 years ago. That was back in the days when terrestrial FM radio stations would play anything from Mountain to Madness and Metheny to the Mahavishnu Orchestra. I have […]

WED & FRI, SEPT 8 & 10: L.A. rock, then and now, at Lobero  The Wallflowers’ leader Jakob Dylan has spent time in recent years either making or promoting Echo in the Canyon, the documentary that looks back longingly at the mid-1960s when Hollywood’s Laurel Canyon served as creative and residential stomping grounds for such […]

Fourth-generation Californian and Santa Barbara native Ben Sprague has been the CEO of the Earl Warren Showgrounds (EWS) State of California 19th District Agricultural Association since January 2019, appointed by its nine-person, all-volunteer board of directors. His mission is to bring the EWS to financial stability, modernize the facilities, increase community awareness and support, and […]

Performing arts and the arts nonprofit sector of Santa Barbara took a huge hit in 2020, as COVID performed a scorched earth campaign across an already tenuous industry. Santa Barbara loves its art and its artists, but it has often suffered from the silo’ing of audiences and funding.  Philanthropists love having their names on new […]

This Our Town series interviews top venues in Santa Barbara, Ventura, Ojai, and Los Angeles about their reopening strategies. Before we dive into the Santa Barbara Bowl’s plan, it’s important to understand the landscape in which larger venues must function. On June 15, the State of California in conjunction with the California Department of Public […]

Where were you when you first heard Bob Dylan? Arguably one of the greatest poets and musical artists of our generation, Bob Dylan has been covered and worshiped by fans and artists of all walks of life. Born as Robert Allen Zimmerman in Duluth, Minnesota, the musician has been in the game for sixty years, […]

As the 72nd Music Academy of the West summer festival nears its conclusion, the Santa Barbara Bowl was the place to be on an idyllic evening for a community concert with the historic London Symphony Orchestra and the Academy Festival Orchestra under conductor Daniel Harding, music director of the Orchestre de Paris. The sold-out show, […]