By George Varga, San Diego Union Tribune
Solana Beach — Creating an outdoor backstage running track for Mick Jagger to warm up on before the Rolling Stones performed. Renting a coffin for rock ‘n’ roll wild man Screamin’ Jay Hawkins — and providing six “pallbearers” to carry him onstage in it. Installing a hydraulic lift for mobility-impaired blues and soul vocal legend Etta James to get on and off stage.
These are just three memorable moments in the history of the Belly Up, the 600-capacity Solana Beach nightclub that this month celebrates its 50th anniversary as one of the premiere intimate concert venues in San Diego and Southern California.
Thinking quickly, the stage manager phoned Claudia Garrity, who had been hired in 1985 as the Belly Up’s first female bartender and was off that night. Conveniently, she lived only a few blocks away from South Cedros Avenue, the street the venue has been on since opening its doors in 1974 as a small, unassuming bar that had no stage or live music.
“Stevie was refusing to go on stage with wet hair, so I took my hairdryer to her,” recalled Garrity, who at the time walked to and from her bartending gig. “Actually, I didn’t have one. So, I took my roommate’s hairdryer for Stevie — and I didn’t get it back!”
Breakfast at 1 a.m.
Now the Belly Up’s longtime bar manager, Garrity laughed when asked if she received a bonus for springing into action and saving the show in the nick of time.
“There were other instances when I would wash clothes for a band or make them breakfast at my house after the show at 1 a.m.,” she said. “I did that for John Lee Hooker and a lot of other blues artists, and for Country Dick Montana of the Beat Farmers. He really liked to stay up late.”
It’s unlikely there will be any mention of laundry runs, late-night breakfasts or errant hairdryers when multiple Grammy Award-winner Jason Mraz performed a sold-out Sept. 28 show at the Belly Up with fellow San Diego singer-songwriter Gregory Page.
“The biggest statement for us is to thank people for supporting the Belly Up for all these years, and to celebrate the value of live music and all the great bands that have played here,” Goldberg said.
Rock Hall of famers
“One of the first national acts we had was Maria Muldaur,” Hodges recalled. “Then, we started bringing in blues greats — Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Big Mama Thornton, Lowell Fulson and Big Joe Turner. (San Diego troubadour) Jerry McCann led our house band for over 10 years, and the Chicago Six played our weekly Dixieland jazz and swing-dance happy hours for at least as long. Jerry introduced me to reggae music by playing Jimmy Cliff covers at the Belly Up. I didn’t dream Jimmy Cliff would end up playing here several times.”
Cliff is one of the nearly 30 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees who have performed at the Belly Up over the years. They represent just a fraction of the notable artists who have played at this intimate beach town venue. Its capacity of 600 is a fraction of the size of the arenas and stadiums that some Belly Up performers have filled, including The Killers, Lady Gaga, No Doubt, Mumford & Sons, Green Day (during its tour as Foxboro Hot Tubs), Black Eyed Peas and Foo Fighters, whose January 2015 show at a private event included a cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Miss You.”
“Even though it was a private event, nothing has made more of an impact for the Belly Up in the past 25 years than that Stones show,” said Chris Goldsmith, the president of Belly Up Entertainment.
“There were news helicopters flying overhead and people started hanging out in the street a day before the show, after word leaked out, We knew for a month the Stones were coming, but we couldn’t tell anybody. It was really exciting when it happened. To pull off a show like that is a real testament to our stage crew and staff.”
Because Stones’ singer Jagger warms up for each concert by working out and running laps, the Belly Up blocked off the alley directly behind the venue to set up a running track area that was blocked off from public view. It stretched, by Goldsmith’s estimate, about 200 yards.
With or without a temporary running track, the Belly Up earns kudos from saxophonist Karl Denson. A touring member of the Stones since 2014, he lives just 10 minutes away from Solana Beach in Encinitas.
‘Such a pleasure’
“It’s my favorite venue in the nation,” Denson said, speaking from a recent Tiny Universe tour date in Nashville. “It’s such an artist-friendly place to play.”
Denson not only has the distinction of having performed once at the Belly Up with the Stones, but also multiple times there with his band, Tiny Universe, and as a member of the San Diego-bred groups Slightly Stoopid and the Greyboy Allstars, with which he’ll play there again Nov. 29 and 30. He has also appeared at the venue as a special guest with the Wooten Brothers, Galactic and several other bands.
Melissa Etheridge made her debut at the venue this year with a pair of concerts in April. She became an instant fan.
“I love the Belly Up,” Etheridge said. “It’s got a great sound system and stage, and they treat you really well. Playing there was so much fun I just ripped up my set list and started doing some songs I’d never done live before.”
Saxophonist Denson first performed at the Belly Up in 1995 with Greyboy Allstars. That was 21 years after the venue had opened as a 200-capacity blue collar bar, located in a Quonset hut that had previously housed a waterbed showroom.
Belly Up mastermind Hodges and his initial business partner, Greg Gilholm, paid $10,000 to transform the unassuming hut, one block east of Old Highway 101, into a neighborhood tavern. After a shaky start, it proved to be such a sound investment that — by 1979 — Hodges bought the building and the entire row of two dozen adjoining huts, which he rented out to other homegrown stores and businesses.
Pool tables and foosball
But there were no indications at first the Belly Up would survive, let alone thrive. A University of San Diego business major, Hodges chose the name Belly Up because he thought the bar would be a decidedly short-lived venture.
“At the end of each night we’d collect the quarters people had paid to play pool and foosball,” Hodges said with a laugh. “There were two or three other North County clubs on the coast then, between Carlsbad and Solana Beach, so we started doing music to survive — and that was definitely a turning point for us.”
“We started out in one Quonset hut,” Hodges said. “Then we added a kitchen, made the bar larger, put in a stage and — every few years — we’d expand a little more. We kept expanding the building until we got up to 2,500 square feet. Now, it’s 7,500 square feet.”
Over time, the Belly Up grew to include a recording studio, a record label, an elevated reserved-seating loft section, a second bar, a TV series and a restaurant called the Wild Note (which, following a pandemic-related shutdown in 2020-2021, reopened as the Tavern). One of the biggest steps forward came with the 1985 launch of the Hodges-financed Falk & Morrow Talent, which occupied an office suite next door to the Belly Up.
A joint effort by San Diego Blues Society co-founder Kevin Morrow and the now-deceased Malcom Falk, the talent agency booked all the local, regional, national and international artists who performed at the club. Falk & Morrow was also the booking agency for an eclectic batch of artists, including Jamaican reggae mainstays Eek-A-Mouse and the Skatalites, former Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor, Zimbabwean music star Thomas Mapfumo, blues dynamo Joe Louis Walker, gospel-music legend Pops Staples and others.
A former minor league baseball player, Morrow was hired away in 1994 to oversee talent for the national House of Blues chain. In 2007, he became the president of concert industry powerhouse Live Nation’s New York City operations and, in 2011, co-founded Steel Wool Entertainment in Los Angeles.
‘The pantheon of gigs’
“When I started at Falk & Morrow in 1988, ‘classic rock’ was just called rock and (radio station) KGB-FM was king in San Diego,” Goldsmith said.
“With the Belly Up, Kevin and Mac provided a venue for great blues artists like John Lee Hooker and Etta James, who might otherwise have skipped playing in San Diego. Then it expanded to include reggae, world music and more. What opened the club up was that we brought in performers who weren’t yet household names, including the Neville Brothers and Albert Collins, but who were so great that it boosted the reputation of the Belly Up.”
The national and international talent the Belly Up brought to town was pivotal to its success. Ditto the wealth of present and former San Diego artists for whom the venue became almost a second home, including the Beat Farmers, Mojo Nixon, Common Sense, the Paladins, Candye Kane, the Mar Dels, Rosie Flores, Atomic Groove and Borracho y Loco, whose bassist — future Belly Up honcho Goldsmith — was just 20 when the band made its Belly Up debut in 1985.
“Having grown up in North County, playing there was the pantheon of gigs for us,” said Goldsmith, who has since produced Grammy Award-winning albums for such Belly Up alums as Ben Harper, the Blind Boys of Alabama and Charlie Musslewhite.
“Our second gig there in 1985 was opening for Red Hot Chili Peppers,” he continued. “Only 200 people came, and Borracho might have drawn half of them. The cool thing is that the Peppers came back to the Belly Up in 2018 — to play a $1,000-a-ticket fundraiser for the San Diego Foundation — and they remembered very well having played here back in ’85.
“The Belly Up has grown a lot since then, but we’re still an intimate, independently owned venue. We still do more than 300 shows a year and we still have free parking and a free coat check. Most important, we still have the same warm, friendly vibe.”
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Boo-Boo had been looking forward to the Historical Society’s Halloween party all month. He had never been to one before, and was excited to dress up in his best white sheet.
Jackie o’Lantern was feeling excited as she made her way to the community center by the sea. It was the earliest Halloween party of the season, and Jackie loved nothing more than dressing up and celebrating with her friends.
The Jinx attended the earliest Halloween party of the season, at a community center by the sea. It was two days before the full moon and the days might finally start to get chilly. The Jinx was excited to attend his first Halloween party, but he was also nervous. What would he wear? He had no idea what costumes humans wore. He decided to go as himself and flew to the party in a cloud of dark smoke.
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William Wisp had been looking forward to the community center’s Halloween party all month long. It was going to be two days before the full moon, and he loved the smell of fall in the air (cinnamon and pumpkin spice). His Halloween costume was all ready to go, and he was excited to show it off to all of his friends. This year, he was dressed as a pumpkin. His little orange boots matched his little pumpkin body perfectly.
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The Frankster had always loved Halloween. He loved the costumes, the candy, and most of all, the parties. This year, he was especially excited for the party at the community center by the sea. It was two days before the full moon, and he could feel a tiny bit of a cool autumn breeze in the air.
Wooblydook was really excited to attend the Halloween party at the community center by the sea. He had never been to one before, and he was looking forward to kale pulling and making neep lanterns. The party was two days before the full moon, and Wooblydook was hoping it would start to get chilly soon. He loved being out in the cold and feeling his bat-like ears flap in the wind.
As the sun began to set, the community center by the sea came to life. Lights flickered on, announcing that the earliest Halloween party of the season was about to start. A golden sun slowly rose in the sky, growing brighter and brighter as it got closer to the horizon. As it reached its peak, people whispered: this sun only came out at night. It was the Midnight Sun.