San Diego has many wonderful musical events on its calendar, but none truly capture the essence of the city like the Old Mission Bay Athletic Club’s (OMBAC) annual Coming Out Party, set to take place this year on Saturday, Sept. 30, at Mariner’s Point. This mini-music festival, set on the sands of Mission Bay, has been an area tradition for over five decades and originated as a way to celebrate club member Delmar Miller’s release from a Korean prisoner of war camp in 1953.
This year’s festivities, beginning at 2:30 p.m. and include five bands. On hand will be covers-playing combo The Stalker Dan Band. This group are true crowd-pleasers, with an impressive repertoire of dozens of rock and pop classics to choose from. Also playing an early set will be swing band Royal Crown Revue. While the sand won’t be conducive to dancing, this is an excellent, high-energy group, complete with horn section. They are easily the best reason to show up early to this event. Closing out the day will be sets from Coming-Out-Party-veterans Eve Selis, The Farmers and the Jimmy Buffet-influenced stylings of Mark Wood & The Parrot Head Band.
Eve Selis Band guitarist, Marc Intravaia, has fond memories of past shows, even if he can’t remember exactly how many times he’s performed at them.
“I’ve only played this once before with the Eve band, but may have done the show back in the ’70s with my old band Listen. If I could only remember back that far!” he said.
Last year’s show however, did make an impression on Intravaia.
“From my standpoint, it’s got it all. Great setting on the bay, the bands are treated extremely well by the organizers, it’s very professionally organized and it has a great big stage with lots of room.”
Intravaia noted that some things are very important to musicians at festivals, joking that he is happiest that there is “plenty of beer backstage.” He acknowledges that bands must adapt their repertoire for gigs like this. “You need to step it up a notch, play less ballads, maybe show off a bit,” he explained. “It’s set up as a concert, not a dance, and the crowd wants to rock, so we approach it as such and played a harder-edged set than usual.”
Drummer Joel Kmak of The Farmers agrees that playing outdoors can be a challenge.
“It’s a totally different animal than a club,” he said. “You have to remember not to overplay and hit everything too hard. You also have to remember the sound out front where the audience is usually bigger than the sound we hear.”
For him the biggest drawback is the monitor systems on stage at these shows. “The best way to play big, out door shows is imagine I’m practicing with the band in my living room. It’s the same approach,” he said. Things don’t always go right, however. “Sometimes, for what ever reason, the sound for the show is way different than it was at sound check. All of a sudden I realize that I can’t really can’t even hear Rolle’s (Love) bass or Jerry’s (Raney’s) vocals anymore for some reason. You just have to deal with it,” he said.
He considers this concert to be one of the year’s highlights for him. “The show is a blast,” he remarked. “Usually we share an RV with a few bands and since we’re all friends, it’s always been a lot of fun, you know, catching up on about a tour or show.”
He does admit to having a secret weapon to guard against problems during the event. Much as a football player might have a “lucky” pair of socks, Kmak has has a rather larger talisman of sorts. “I use my ‘new’ 1980 blue Ludwig drum kit for outdoor shows. I don’t know why, but it makes me feel better,” he laughed.