We also asked readers to share memories of their favorite shows at Humphreys, and received some very enthusiastic responses. Here are a dozen of them. They have been edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n
John Lee Hooker<\/p>\n
My favorite Humphreys concert was John Lee Hooker in 1998, three years prior to his passing.<\/p>\n
I was enthralled by the low-key blues great. I was a \u201cboat person\u201d for this concert and loved it. I am a lifelong Deadhead, but also a blues lover. I will never forget John Lee, sitting on that dark center stage, playing his guitar and singing with his guttural yet smooth, deep voice hitting straight into the soul.<\/p>\n
Thank you, Humphreys!<\/p>\n
John Snyder, Del Cerro<\/p>\n
Jimmy Buffett<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t remember the year, but the best concert I attended at Humphreys was Jimmy Buffett and The Coral Reefers. A conga line started in the audience during the song \u201cFins\u201d \u2014 \u201cFins to the left, fins to the right!\u201d I\u2019ve been to many Buffett concerts, but this might have been the best.<\/p>\n
David Simmonds,\u00a0Mission Beach<\/p>\n
Lee Ritenour<\/p>\n
I loved your article on Humphreys.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been reading your great work since the 1980s and\u00a0I went to my first concert at Humphreys in the \u201980s. A great concert venue with a lot of great acts that visit there.\u00a0 No wonder artists love it. It\u2019s a great spot to perform!<\/p>\n
The article brought back a lot of nice memories of seeing Lee Ritenour there numerous times in the \u201980s.\u00a0I hope you never stop sharing your knowledge and interest of music with us!\u00a0Keep on rockin\u2019!<\/p>\n
Michael Griffith, Coronado<\/p>\n
Wedding bells<\/p>\n
I re-met my husband at a Hiroshima concert at Humphreys on June 21, 1991. I had known him when we were both San Diego Police Department officers in the 1970s. We had both worked on the same squad and knew each other as co-workers until 1980 when he left SDPD.<\/p>\n
Fast forward to that June night and he walked by me with a woman and a Humphrey\u2019s employee who was showing them to their seats. I was with two girlfriends. I told them I had worked with the guy and was going to say hello. I tugged on his sleeve and said: \u201cHi.\u201d He responded by saying my entire name and asking if I still worked for the city. I said \u201cYes.\u201d and also said I was embarrassed as I had forgotten his name. He said: \u201cJohn Burgess.\u201d<\/p>\n
I then told him (that) his wife and the Humphreys\u2019 employee were walking away and didn\u2019t know he had stopped to chat. He responded it was a blind date! We said goodbye and the following week he called me at my office and asked me for a date. Our next two dates were at Humphreys, The Righteous Brothers and Johnny Mathis. We both had tickets to various concerts there that summer but none were the same. During the Righteous Brothers\u2019 concert, Bill Medley saw all the people on the boats and kayaks and yelled: \u201cNext time, buy a ticket!\u201d It was hilarious.<\/p>\n
Three years after re-meeting my husband, we were married in San Diego. It\u2019s now been almost 32 years. That\u2019s my story.<\/p>\n
Janet Chelberg Burgess, San Carlos<\/p>\n
Ray, Tony, Chicago<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve attended maybe 100 Humphrey concerts over the years. There are so many memorable ones, but three that standout are:<\/p>\n
1. In 1990, I took my then-8-year-old daughter to her first concert, Ray Charles. She had started liking him because he was doing Pepsi commercials at the time.<\/p>\n
2. Seeing Chicago in the rain in the late \u201990s when I was dating my wife. We had our rain ponchos on and it was fun experiencing their music this way.<\/p>\n
3. Tony Bennett in the mid-2000s. Another rainy concert. There were flash flood warnings that night, but he still got out there and sang beautifully. His daughter opened up the show for him.<\/p>\n
Stephen Shushan, Mission Hills<\/p>\n
Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes!<\/p>\n
Great article in the Union-Tribune on the 45th anniversary of Humphreys! I\u2019ve been to 49 concerts at Humphreys, starting with The Rippingtons in September 1994. My 50th show will be Cheap Trick coming up on April 24th.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve seen some great acts at Humphreys, from Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan, and Steve Winwood to Alice Cooper, Kansas, Styx and ZZ Top, to name a few. But my most memorable have been to see my favorite band, Yes, at Humphreys, seven times.<\/p>\n
I sang in a San Diego Yes tribute band called Roundabout from 1998 to 2005, so the music of Yes is near and dear to my heart. When I left the band in 2005, the guy who replaced me was the one and only Jon Davison, who is now the current lead singer for Yes.\u00a0 At Jon\u2019s first Humphreys show with Yes, on Aug. 18, 2012,he got me and my son two tickets and backstage passes.<\/p>\n
It was a fantastic concert!\u00a0 What made it even better was to hang out with Jon Davison afterward and to meet Yes bass legend himself, Chris Squire. I\u2019ve seen Yes 30 times, but that was my son\u2019s first Yes concert. Very exciting for both us and a memory to last a lifetime!<\/p>\n
Dave Horn,\u00a0Vista<\/p>\n
Little Steven<\/p>\n
My favorite Humphreys concert was Little Steven and The Disciples of Soul in October 2017. I only know the date because of the T-shirt I bought, which I still wear. I was amazed at the crowd size \u2014 I\u2019m not sure it was even half full. I couldn\u2019t believe it.<\/p>\n
He played my favorite songs from 1994\u2019s \u201cVoice of America\u201d album. I was the only person around me singing these great rock and roll protest\/resistance songs. The Disciples of Soul were awesome; great horns and backup singers. I have all their \u201calbums,\u201d aka CDs. On the way out, I bought a Little Steven Underground Garage T-shirt. This was my favorite concert at Humphreys, and is in my Top Ten concerts anywhere. I\u2019m still amazed more people didn\u2019t attend that concert.<\/p>\n
Regarding your 2015 Union-Tribune commentary about nonstop yammering at concerts, I experienced exactly that at a Lucinda Williams concert. It may have been the same year as Little Steven. I asked three women behind us to please be quiet and they made fun of me the rest of the night. It sucked.<\/p>\n
Suzanne Hall,\u00a0Oceanside<\/p>\n
Firesign Theater<\/p>\n
I loved your article on Humphrey\u2019s. I have had memorable evenings there over the years.<\/p>\n
On July 10, 1994, an old friend from USD \u2014 where we had became Firesign Theater fanatics \u2014 and I attended Firesign\u2019s performance at Humphreys. At a point midway through their famous \u201cNick Danger\u201d sketch, in which Nick and Lt. Bradshaw are cracking wise, I yelled out the next line in the script \u2014 a killer line. Immediately, Firesign\u2019s Phil Austin (Nick Danger) and Peter Bergman (Lt. Bradshaw) stopped the show, stormed off the stage, rushed to where I was seated in the middle of the venue, and upbraided me for stealing Austin\u2019s line. The audience went wild and my friend slugged me in the arm. They then returned to the stage and picked up where they had left off.<\/p>\n
Gary W. Schons, Talmadge<\/p>\n
![\"Vince](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/TDB-L-EAGLES-0107_dk_06.jpg\")
Vince Gill\u2019s cocnert at Humphreys is cited as a favorite by a San Diego Union-Tribune reader. (Drew A. Kelley)
\nVince Gill, Dwight Yoakam<\/p>\n
In August 2005, we were told by the young sailors sitting next to us at Humphreys that they may need to leave early because they were on call to go help save Russian submariners on the Priz AS-28, which was tangled in fishing nets with had just hours of air left.<\/p>\n
We usually went to a concert at Humphreys to celebrate my birthday every August. I have great memories of seeing Vince Gill and Dwight Yoakam there.<\/p>\n
Patti Rolla. Bay Park<\/p>\n
Whitney Houston, Art Good<\/p>\n
For me there was no better way or place to watch live music than a concert at Humphreys. It still makes me think of the great KIFM disc jockey, Art Good, and the song \u201cWine Light\u201d by Grover Washington Jr.<\/p>\n
I was in the crowd for four or five concerts a year. I once treated a group of friends to see Smokey Robinson on my birthday. No better way to age!<\/p>\n
One night stands out. A beautiful young woman walked out on the stage to applause. It never stopped. Her debut album had just been released. To hear her sing those songs from the closeness of Humphreys made you feel incredibly lucky. She was fantastic. The audience stood on their toes for encores. Thank you, Whitney Houston.<\/p>\n
I missed Roy Orbison and Ray Charles. But I did see Whitney, a young lady that would become one of the all-time greats before fame and greed interfered. I\u2019ll never forget that night.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t go anymore; too many rude people. But I will always think fondly of so many Humphreys concerts, Art Good, and that incredible lady, Whitney.<\/p>\n
Rich Marcell, University City<\/p>\n
Grover Washington Jr.<\/p>\n
I was introduced to Grover Washington Jr.\u2019s music by a former girlfriend in Kansas City. She relocated to San Diego and invited me to visit, knowing that outdoor shows are my preference.<\/p>\n
My first concert when I moved to San Diego was at Humphreys to hear Grover. He had recently released the album \u201cStrawberry Moon\u201d and there was a gorgeous full moon that night. The evening offered palm trees, drinks you could order from your seats, a great temperature, and his amazing, sexy saxophone playing. This is the finest outdoor concert venue I have experienced. Thank you, (Humphreys owner) Richard Bartell!<\/p>\n
Tony Alfino,\u00a0Allied Gardens
\nPower outage<\/p>\n
I really enjoyed your article, including the history of how this incredibly successful venue, Humphreys, came to be.<\/p>\n
As a young radio sales guy, I had the pleasure of working with many of those involved in establishing Humphreys Concerts by the Bay (Kenny Weissberg, Marc Geiger, Bobb Brieskei, etc.).<\/p>\n
Few will recall the one year that my radio station, K-BEST 95, was able to secure Art Good\u2019s evening \u201cJazz Trax\u201d program away from KIFM and was the presenting radio station for one year. It was 1985, the best summer of my life! I feel that Art\u2019s influence in the early years, while he was at KIFM and introducing San Diego to these amazing light-jazz artists bears mentioning as a huge contributor to Humphreys\u2019 early success.<\/p>\n
Since you asked, my favorite Humphreys concerts, all from 1985, include Whitney Houston\u2019s debut (incredibly moving) and Jimmy Buffet\u2019s two days of shows, including a Monday-night concert when the power was out on Shelter Island, delaying the start of the first show. With a backstage pass, I happened across a dimly lit open hotel room where Buffett and Josh Leo were sitting on the bed with their guitars. I enjoyed hearing them write and and rehearse the eventual opening number for the show. To the melody of Bruce Springsteen\u2019s, \u201cDancing in the Dark,\u201d the lyrics I loosely recall were\u201d \u201cYou can\u2019t start a concert without a spark \/ This band\u2019s for hire, even if were just playing in the dark.\u201d<\/p>\n
John Wilson, Solana Beach<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the March 8 Sunday Arts section of the San Diego Union-Tribune we looked back at the evolution…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,967,181,6682,74,84,76,75,420],"class_list":{"0":"post-242092","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-latest-headlines","11":"tag-music-and-concerts","12":"tag-san-diego","13":"tag-san-diego-county","14":"tag-san-diego-headlines","15":"tag-san-diego-news","16":"tag-things-to-do"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}