Bad Bunny to precede his Petco Park stadium shows with Pechanga Arena concert Wednesday

San Diego Union-Tribune

Feb. 18, 2022 11 AM PT

Apart from their very different musical approaches, there is a key difference between veteran Super Bowl halftime show performers Bad Bunny and The Weeknd that is reflected by their respective 2022 touring schedules.

Specifically, The Weeknd — who headlined the 2021 halftime show — canceled his entire 2022 “The After Hours” arena tour (including his March 13 Pechanga Arena San Diego date) in favor of his “The After Hours In Dawn” stadium tour. That new tour, at least thus far, does not appear to include a San Diego stop.

Bad Bunny, who guested with Shakira and Jennifer Lopez at the 2020 halftime show, has also opted to do a summer stadium tour, but it’s in addition to his “El Último Tour del Mundo 2022,” which includes a sold-out Wednesday show at Pechanga Arena San Diego.

As a result, the Puerto Rican reggaeton music superstar will perform here three times in less than seven months, thanks to his Pechanga Arena concert and his Sept. 17 and 18 shows at Petco Park, where he will be become the first artist in any genre to play two back-to-back full stadium gigs at the downtown ballpark.

How much bigger a production Bad Bunny will mount at his Petco double-header remains to be seen. But it could make his Pechanga Arena concert seem intimate by comparison.

8 p.m. Wednesday. Pechanga Arena San Diego, 3500 Sports Arena Blvd., Loma Portal. Sold out. axs.com

COVID protocols: For policy details, visit the venue’s website.

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.”