Street Scene - San Diego, California - September 6, 1997

We went to see Street Scene twice in San Diego. I remember seeing a few bands there that I remember, namely Stan Ridgeway, Los Lobos and Save Ferris. However, I can’t really remember that much else – even which bands I saw which years. Basically all I ever remember about these things is trying to optimize parking, eating and especially drinking, so that you can avoid those nasty portable toilets.

I always thought Street Scene, while a great idea in a pretty cool part of town, always had sort of substandard acts. Maybe it is just because they were trying to appeal to a pretty broad swath of the community – which is a strange mishmash of people, almost none of them local, including lots of military. So there were country stages, jazz stages, rock stages and lots of bands I had never heard of (or cared to hear again after that weekend). When I look at other regional festivals in September like Bumbershoot or Austin City Limits they seem to have much cooler bands. So maybe there is too much competition for Labor Day weekend. Maybe they should have street scene in November or February or something when people would rather be in San Diego than say, Chicago.

That being said I just went to the Street Scene website and it looks like they have made a lot of improvements. For one thing it is later in the season, the end of September, it is at a proper amphitheatre versus on the streets, and the lineup of bands is much, much better. If I lived there I would have wanted to go this year.