Donavon Frankenreiter, Fabulous Thunderbirds set for 15th anniversary Green Flash concerts at Birch Aquarium

The band 10,000 Maniacs is shown performing in 2019 at the Green Flash concert series at La Jolla's Birch Aquarium.

The concert series take place at Tide Pool Plaza, overlooking Scripps Pier and the Pacific Ocean

San Diego Union-Tribune

March 5, 2020 8:48 AM PT

Surfer-turned-singer-songwriter Donavon Frankenreiter and Texas blues-rock mainstays The Fabulous Thunderbirds are the first artists confirmed for the 15th anniversary Green Flash Summer Concert Series at Scripps Institution of Oceanography’s Birch Aquarium.

The Thunderbirds, led by singer and harmonica player Kim Wilson, will perform June 17. Frankenreiter performs Aug. 26. Three other acts will appear May 20, July 15 and Sept. 23 as part of the series, which takes place overlooking the Pacific Ocean at the La Jolla aquarium’s outdoor Tide Pool Plaza.

“We are thrilled to be celebrating the 15th anniversary of the Green Flash Summer Concert Series,” said Birch Aquarium Executive Director Harry Helling, in a statement released Thursday morning. “The concerts are a great opportunity for us to share our mission with new audiences while enjoying world class music and beautiful sunsets. If you watch closely, you may even see a real green flash.”

Concerts generally take place from 6:30 to 9 p.m. and are primarily general-admission, standing-room only. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. for each show. Attendees must be 21 or older.

Advance tickets, now on sale, are $37 per concert for aquarium members and $42 for the general public. Day-of-show tickets are $48, although a fair number of previous Green Flash concerts have sold out in advance.

Early Bird season passes are available, through March 31, and are priced at $170 for aquarium members and $185 for the general public. Beginning April 1, season pass prices go up to $175 for aquarium members and $195 for the general public. VIP Experience tickets — which include balcony seats, catered food and beverages — cost $150 per person, per show.

All tickets and passes include concert admission and access to all aquarium exhibits, as well as free parking. There is a $6 service fee for all online ticket orders. There is no service fee for tickets bought in person at the aquarium.

Tickets can be purchased online at aquarium.ucsd.edu/experiences/events/green-flash More information is available at (858) 534-3474.

George Varga

San Diego Union-Tribune music critic George Varga began drumming in rock bands at 12 and writing professionally about music at 15. A Louisiana native who grew up mostly in Germany, Varga has earned three Pulitzer Prize nominations for his writing at the U-T and is a voting member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In addition to providing live coverage of the Grammy Awards and festivals from Coachella and KAABOO to the 1994 edition of Woodstock, he has interviewed everyone from Miles Davis, Britney Spears and (over a game of chess) Ray Charles to Willie Nelson, Kanye West and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis. A triple first prize-winner for criticism and arts writing at the 2022 San Diego Press Club awards and a first prize-winner at the 2022 San Diego Society of Professional Journalists awards, Varga is also a contributing writer for Jazz Times magazine and has written for Billboard, Spin and other publications. After attending San Diego City College and San Diego State University, he created and taught the 2002 UC San Diego Extension course, “Jazz in a Post-Ken-Burns World.” Varga has written liner notes for more than a dozen albums, including by jazz sax greats James Moody and Michael Brecker, and contributed two chapters to the book, “Dylan: Disc By Disc.”