Britney Spears Performance Sets San Diego Buzzing

Britney Spears caught the attention of San Diego within a half an hour of entering San Diego County when her concert bus was pulled over by the California Highway Patrol yesterday afternoon.

The CHP responded to 911 emergency calls from motorists complaining both about a speeding bus and traffic slowdowns due to the vehicles of photographers following and closing in around the bus on southbound Interstate 5 near Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. A CHP motorcycle pulled over the Spears bus at Tamarack Avenue in Carlsbad, about 35 miles north of downtown San Diego and 5 miles south of Camp Pendleton. Additonal CHP units arrived, including a supervisor, as news cameras and photographers swarmed around the bus in the parking lot of Squid Joe's restaurant.

The Highway Patrol released the bus with a warning after about 15 minutes and a talk with the driver, Britney's security personnel and her cousin, Alli. A CHP supervisor scolded the photographers and insisted that "someone's going to jail" if the CHP sees any unsafe activity around the bus. He said he was detailing two units to "trail," rather than escort, the bus to San Diego. The ersatz motorcade of bus, paparazzi and police made it to San Diego without further incident.

About a thousand people were admitted to the House of Blues on 5th Avenue in downtown San Diego for the 10pm concert. Although the tickets retailed for $35, several fans said they had paid more than $100 each and scalpers were reportedly asking as much as $500 each. The concert was billed as "The M+M's" but rumors have been circulating for more than a week that the act was really Britney Spears, since no act with that name is known either locally or nationally. Britney and her four dancers smiled for photographers as they entered the House of Blues but a proposed "Q & A" session with fans didn't happen.

The concert lasted only twenty minutes and included 5 songs and 1 costume change. Local news stations report that Britney lip-synched all her work and that fans were mostly ambivalent or disappointed.

Although it is California's second-largest city, San Diego rarely sees big-name concert acts and is home to few entertainment celebrities, unlike the Los Angeles area and neighboring Orange County. The San Diego region is known best for its military bases, biotech industries and beach-related tourism venues, but locals usually have to travel to Irvine, Anaheim or LA to see large concerts. While venues such as the Cox Arena at San Diego State University, the old Sports Arena near Mission Bay and the Bacchanal club in Clairemont once attracted nationally-known performers, big-name acts now appear mostly at the casinos on the Native American reservations in the rural areas of San Diego and Riverside Counties such as Rincon, Viejas and Barona. Yet even these rarely attract stars of Britney's stature.

However, the opening of the House of Blues in downtown San Diego in 2005 may change that. The chain, founded in the 1990s by a founder of the Hard Rock Cafe and widely promoted by Dan Aykroyd and Jim Belushi, has expanded steadily. In 2006 it was bought by Live Nation, the former concert-promotion arm of Clear Channel Communications, spun off into a separate corporation in 2005. Britney's association with House of Blues, which reportedly will include appearances in Anaheim and West Hollywood this month, may signal a new role for the franchise as a promoter of big names in small but upscale settings such as San Diego's downtown.

Sources

City Wire, 10News.com, "Britney Spears Live Show Only Lasts 20 Minutes," http://www.10news.com/news/13230388/detail.html

USA Today, "Britney Back On Stage, But Is She Back On Track?" http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2007-04-26-britney-hob_N.htm

News 8 KFMB, "Britney Begins Comeback Tour In San Diego," http://www.cbs8.com/stories/story.88777.html

Live Music Blog, "Live Nation (Officially) Buys House Of Blues," http://www.livemusicblog.com/news/06/11/07/live-nation-officially-buys-house-of-blues.php