“Yessss, I’m a Ludacris fan,” crows 41-year-old downtown resident Kay Thomas, breaking into dance moves to punctuate her point, her cassette-tape earrings swinging.
She’s answering the question I ask everyone I meet milling around the perimeter of the Embarcadero’s Rady Shell at Jacobs Park in the hours before the “Act a Fool” rapper takes the stage on a cool, early summer night: “Are you a Ludacris fan?”
“I went through a big Ludacris phase in my day,” concedes another attendee. “I had the CDs; that’s how old I am. You’re going to see a lot of 30-year-olds here.”
I do, but I also see 18-month-olds in strollers, school-aged kids and teens of every grade with their parents, beer-toting groups of 20- and 40- and 50-somethings, white-haired ladies that resemble my grandma, a few toothless infants in Babybjörns, several dogs (one also in a Babybjörn), a woman wearing a neck brace, a small bicycle gang, a handful of roller skaters, and a charcuterie board that contains an entire baked brie. None of them have a ticket—instead, they’ve gathered on the promenade abutting the downtown venue. Early birds score seats on benches and rocks, often with coolers and blankets in tow, while latecomers fill in standing room on the sidewalk.
Private boats full of spectators bob serenely in the surrounding bay. The captain of one vessel calls out, “Who’s on tonight?” as he cruises by, and one of the promenade picnickers shouts an answer. Shortly after, a couple rows up in a tiny, two-person dinghy and pulls out sandwiches. Plenty of these attendees, I learn, are less Ludacris devotees than they are Rady Shell regulars.
“I live right there,” Karen Pannell tells me, gesturing in the general direction of downtown. She’s arrived early to snag a bench. “I usually go inside [the venue] for a couple of shows a year, and for a lot of others, I just wander over. Even if it’s someone I don’t even know, I’m like, ‘Might as well.’”
Once, while strolling the promenade in the daytime, she heard a familiar voice. “I was like, ‘Wait a minute,’” she says. “So, I went over, and there’s Alicia Keys doing a sound check. It wasn’t really advertised—it was a charity event. I went back that night for it.”
We’re still chatting when Pannell’s friend Eve Verdian, a Gaslamp resident in her late 60s, arrives, bearing clips on her phone from Brand New’s sound check at Gallagher Square, which she watched from her sister’s condo overlooking Petco Park. It’s around this time that I realize there’s a whole subculture of free live music seekers quietly thrumming along in San Diego.
Thirty-six-year-old Nate Hancock and his group of buddies keep a dated list of Rady Shell and Gallagher Square concerts they want to catch each season from the promenade or rooftop spot Fairweather Bar, respectively— though he tells me that the Ludacris show was a last-minute addition to the agenda.
Downtown resident Nate Hancock, his dog Captain, and his group of gold chain– clad friends.
“Where did you get the chains, then?” I ask, gazing around at the oversized gold plastic necklaces everyone in his squad— including his labradoodle, Captain—is wearing.
He shrugs. “We ordered ’em on Amazon last night.”
It’s one of the bolder fashion statements on display tonight, but Hancock’s group isn’t out of place—the looks vary so wildly that no one is. Dotted among the many attendees in hoodies and beanies to fight the chill coming off the bay are people in dressier, club-ready outfits. Some, clad in khakis and sweater vests, clearly came straight from work. A little boy scooters by in a full white suit.
And Saturnino Martinez is rocking a steampunky leather top hat and yellow-tinted goggles. Fingerless gloves cover his hands. “You can’t bring anything into the Shell,” he points out. “But out here, it’s free rein. Well, you can’t bring chairs or anything, but you could bring a backpack—but they’re going to search it—and snacks and hot dogs and burritos and 420-friendly stuff. You could smoke out here. You could do edibles.”
A crowd gathers on the promenade outside The Rady Shell to catch the show for free.
Indeed, as showtime approaches and the crowd grows, the pungent aroma of cannabis increasingly permeates the air. Controlled substances aside, though, the views from the promenade are so good that it feels like you’re getting away with something. But, according to Craig Hall, vice president for marketing and communications at the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, the ability to catch each concert free of charge is intentional.
“Ensuring the promenade and surrounding views around The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park remained accessible was always an essential part of the design. The stunning beauty of this location is part of what makes it so iconic, and we wanted everyone to experience this unique intersection of nature, architecture, and the arts,” he says. “[We] intentionally included benches [on the promenade] from which people can sit and view and enjoy rehearsals [or] concerts.”
I’m not an expert on American concert venues, but I imagine it’s one of the few places in the country where people can not just hear but see chart-topping recording artists without paying a cent.
Oak Park resident D’Wayne Bullock and his children, Grace (11) and Grant (15).
For Oak Park resident D’Wayne Bullock, tonight’s show is an opportunity to expand the world for Grace, 11, and Grant, 15. “Me and my kids, we do a lot of stuff around San Diego all the time, but I realized the other morning that I’ve never taken them to a concert,” he says. “So, we decided to go ahead and come down. We were going to sit on the lawn, but my mom was like, ‘No, sit outside. You can see everything perfectly.’ So we came last night and scouted it out.”
Their impulse to get there well ahead of the show was a good one—the audience thickens and anticipation heightens as the opening acts take the stage. The picnickers cheer, dance, raise their phones to snap photos of the massive screens projecting rapper Childish Major’s grinning face. The crowd parts only when security guards push through, trailed by a boxy white limo with dark tinted windows. “Oh, there’s Ludacris,” someone says, scooting out of the way.
They were probably right, since, not long after, the man himself arrives at last. The throngs on the promenade—all of them, the vibe seekers and casual fans and one guy who loves Ludacris so much he’s tearing up a little—explode into screams. “When I say, ‘Luda,’ you say, ‘Hell, yeah!’” he commands into the mic, and a chorus of voices pours in from the boats out on the water. A young couple picks their toddler up out of his stroller and bounces him as Ludacris launches into a song from his Fast & Furious days.
I run into Hancock again, pressed up close to the barricade surrounding the venue, Captain’s leash in one hand and a beer in the other. Light from the Shell’s curved dome tints his face blue. “I have friends inside—way back there on the lawn,” he says, pointing. “They paid $100 to be there, and I was like, ‘Dude, we’re gonna watch on the sidewalk, in the front, for free.’”
