{"id":462913,"date":"2026-09-13T23:56:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T23:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/462913\/"},"modified":"2026-09-13T23:56:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T23:56:12","slug":"pierce-the-veil-scored-big-at-sold-out-san-diego-homecoming-concert-at-petco-park-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/462913\/","title":{"rendered":"Pierce The Veil scored big at sold-out San Diego homecoming concert at Petco Park \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

How big a deal was Pierce The Veil\u2019s triumphant homecoming concert at Petco Park Saturday night? You may want to take notes.<\/p>\n

Pierce The Veil will be only second San Diego band to headline a Petco Park concert<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the show were going to remember for the rest of our lives,\u201d lead singer and rhythm guitarist Vic Fuentes told the cheering crowd of around 40,000, which heartily sang along to every selection in the nearly two-hour show. \u201cThis is the biggest venue we\u2019ve ever played. This is the biggest crowd we\u2019ve ever played for.\u201d<\/p>\n

The full-stadium concert, which sold out the same weekend it went on sale in January, was the closing date on the San Diego-bred band\u2019s \u201cI Can\u2019t Hear You World Tour.\u201d It marked their headlining triumph at the downtown ballpark, where Pierce The Veil last performed in 2024 as one of two openings act for fellow hometown favorites blink-182.\n<\/p>\n

Concert review: blink-182 performs act of magic at Petco Park San Diego homecoming show<\/a><\/p>\n

Their 16-month \u201cI Can\u2019t Hear You\u201d concert trek saw the four-man band sell more than 700,000 tickets and perform at such storied venues as New York\u2019s Madison Square Garden and London\u2019s Wembley Arena.<\/p>\n

The Petco Park show came 20 years after Pierce The Veil\u2019s 2006 formation, 11 years after the group headlined the national Vans Warped Tour in 2015, and 10 years after the band performed a mini-set at Petco Park as part of the 2016 MTV Fandom Fest held for Comic-Con attendees.<\/p>\n

\"FansFans sing along as Pierce the Veil performs during their hometown finale for the band\u2019s \u201cI Can\u2019t Hear You World Tour\u201d at Petco Park on Saturday. (Meg McLaughlin \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n

To commemorate Saturday\u2019s concert, The Finest Collective \u2014 the San Diego Padres\u2019 hospitality and events division \u2014 put together an interactive Pierce The Veil Pop-Up Shop that was open Thursday through Saturday in the Candy Factory adjacent to Petco Park.<\/p>\n

Further adding to the celebratory spirit, San Diego-born Stone Brewing on Aug. 29 launched a limited-edition Pierce The Veil IPA, jointly created by singer Fuentes and Stone Brewing Senior Manager of Brewing & Innovation Kris Ketcham. The special pale ale will also be available in Chicago at next weekend\u2019s Riot Fest, where Pierce The Veil is headlining a lineup that includes the Patti Smith Group, Alanis Morissette, Elvis Costello, William Shatner and more than two-dozen other acts.<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s more. On Sept. 3, New York\u2019s Prince St. Pizza launched a limited-edition Pierce The Veil-inspired pizza called La Chona \u2014 also the name of a 1995 norte\u00f1o song by Los Tucanes de Tijuana \u2014 and a Pierce The Veil-themed pizza box. Sales of the spicy pepperoni, chorizo and jalape\u00f1os pie concluded on Sunday.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\"BassistBassist Preciado of Pierce the Veil performs with the band Saturday at Petco Park. (Meg McLaughlin \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n

All of this reinforces what a very big deal Pierce The Veil has become. The band\u2019s success has been made even more notable by the fact this plucky quartet \u2014 which once wryly described itself as \u201ca bunch of Mexicans from San Diego\u201d \u2014 has been operating largely under the mainstream radar since its inception in 2006.<\/p>\n

Pierce The Veil surges with new album & tour<\/a><\/p>\n

There have been no Grammy wins or even nominations, and no San Diego Music Awards wins for the group, whose music mixes elements of post-hardcore, emo, grunge, alternative-rock and more. (\u201cWe still consider ourselves a progressive-rock band,\u201d Fuentes, a former SDSU student and major Queen fan, said in a 2007 Union-Tribune interview.)<\/p>\n

At a packed Petco Park on Saturday night, Pierce The Veil seemed very much in its element. The ecstatic audience gave them a returning hero\u2019s welcome perfectly suited for the occasion. In turn, Fuentes, lead guitarist Tony Perry, bassist\/backing singer Jaime Preciado and drummer Lionel Robinson performed their well-crafted songs with palpable enthusiasm and well-honed precision.<\/p>\n

\"LeadLead guitarist Tony Perry of Pierce The Veil was an energetic presence at the band\u2019s Saturday concert at Petco Park\/ (Meg McLaughlin \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n

The band opened with the powerful one-two punch of \u201cHell Above\u201d and \u201cBulls In The Bronx,\u201d a pair of pile-driving numbers that combine high-velocity impact and carefully calibrated dynamics in equal measure. They concluded 17 songs later with \u201cKing For a Day,\u201d a potent anthem for tenacious underdogs who \u2014 much like Pierce The Veil \u2014 have bucked a system seemingly built to disenfranchise them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe grew up here and we always had a place to play in San Diego,\u201d Fuentes, 43, told the audience, which roared back its approval.<\/p>\n

The band\u2019s arrival on stage was preceded by a mariachi quintet that performed a vocal-free, trumpet-led adaptation of Pierce The Veil\u2019s 2012 song, \u201cMay These Noises Startle You in Your Sleep Tonight.\u201d The quintet\u2019s faces were painted in Dia de los Muertos sugar-skull style, as were the faces of the female dancers who joined the band during \u201cBulls In The Bronx.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DancersDancers perform along with Pierce the Veil during their hometown finale for the I Can\u2019t Hear You World Tour at Petco Park on Saturday, Sept. 12, 2026 in San Diego, California. (Meg McLaughlin \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n

Highlights Saturday included the brightly tuneful lament \u201cCircles,\u201d the moody \u201cI\u2019d Rather Die Than Be Famous,\u201d the pandemic-inspired \u201cPass The Nirvana\u201d (whose lyrics include the refrain \u201cI can\u2019t hear you\u201d that inspired the name of Pierce The Veil\u2019s just-completed tour), the tragedy-tinged love song \u201cI Don\u2019t Care If You\u2019re Contagious,\u201d and the tender \u201cHold On Until May,\u201d which featured a brief vocal cameo by Julia Wolf, one of the concert\u2019s two opening acts.<\/p>\n

Had Fuentes lost his voice early on in the night, it probably wouldn\u2019t have mattered much. The audience, which knew every word to every song, happily sang every lyric from start to finish. Pierce The Veil\u2019s songs \u2014 whether angry or hopeful, brash or melancholic, a call to arms or a secular invocation \u2014 strike a major chord with listeners who hear themselves reflected and acknowledged in each verse and chorus.<\/p>\n

The result was a visceral communion between the mostly young crowd and the band, a mutual celebration that didn\u2019t really need the periodic pyrotechnic bursts on stage or post-concert fireworks display to light up the evening and ignite time and again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How big a deal was Pierce The Veil\u2019s triumphant homecoming concert at Petco Park Saturday night? You may…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[44043,94667,74,76,75,182310],"class_list":["post-462913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-petco-park","tag-pierce-the-veil","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-stone-brewery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462913","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=462913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}