Pala Casino Spa Resort announces 15 May shows to kick off its 2021 Summer Concert Series

Vocal star Lupillo Rivera is among the artists confirmed to perform as part of Pala Casino's summer concert series

Pala-bound acts include Lupillo Rivera, A Flock of Seagulls, The Bar-Kays and more

San Diego Union-Tribune

April 22, 2021 6 AM PT

It remains to be seen if all COVID-19 restrictions on live events in California will be lifted on June 15 as previously announced. Either way, an array of new concerts — all of them socially distanced — have been confirmed at Pala Casino Spa Resort.

Pala has announced the first 15 shows for its 2021 Summer Concert Series. They will be held at the casino’s indoor Events Center and outdoor Starlight Theater, with reduced audience capacities at both, beginning with a May 1 Starlight concert by Mexican Banda-music star Lupillo Rivera.

Other Pala-bound acts in May include A Flock of Seagulls on May 7, The Bar-Kays on May 8 and Luis Coronel on May 30. Arizona-born singer Coronel, now 25, was only 18 in 2014 when he became the youngest solo artist to reach No. 1 on the national Billboard Top Latin Albums charts in 13 years.

The Pala concerts will adhere to social distancing protocols, with groups of two or more people seated 6 feet apart and masking and temperature checks required for all entering. The capacity for both venues has been reduced by 50 percent from their pre-pandemic limits, with a cut from 1,400 to 700 at the Events Center and from 2,000 to 1,000 at the Starlight Theatre.

The most recent national headliner to appear at Pala was the Texas-based Los Rieleros Del Norte, which drew a sold-out audience of 700 to its April 11 Events Center show. Friday’s Events Center concert by soft-rock tribute band Yachtley Crue is sold out.

Ticket information and a full concert schedule are available at: palacasino.com/entertainment/all-entertainment/

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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 double 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.”