Music By the Sea is Great

By Garrick Rawlings

The Point Fermin Music by the Sea summer-long free music festival is well underway and will continue every Sunday through July 30, featuring four acts beginning at 11:30 am to 5 pm at Point Fermin Park. The festival, a labor of love co-founded by and continually organized by Mike Caccavalla (Executive Chef, Meals on Wheels San Pedro), is in its 28th consecutive edition interrupted only by a two-year COVID  layoff. Thanks to their efforts enduring all the financial and logistical time-consuming challenges, this otherwise underutilized park with a classic open-air bandshell next to the charming Victorian Point Fermin Lighthouse (a historic site and museum) upon the breezy picturesque cliffs of the Pacific Ocean at the mouth of the harbor, is there for the community to enjoy every summer. 

Music by the Sea is a fundraised event and you can contact the organization via their Facebook page if you’d like to help out: facebook.com/musicbytheseasanpedro. “Music by the Sea started 28 years ago, when five people sat in a room at Angel’s Gate Art Center, and decided that the bandshell, the stage at Point Fermin Park, needed to be used more often. Out of that discussion came not just Music by the Sea, but Shakespeare by the Sea as well.” – from a previous Random Length News story by Hunter Chase, check that out for even more background on the event.

The music is as eclectic as it gets from R&B and soul-driven dance bands to classic rock cover-driven party bands, straight-up punk and metal, tribute acts, blues, jazz, and a bit of country – all in the same day! The line-ups/schedule are listed on the event’s website. To curate such a show with so many slots to fill over six consecutive Sundays, that’s 24 folks, is a monumental task, especially for non-showbiz community folks who generously put in all their time for the good of the local scene and residents. Without any funding for professional promoters, the difficulty of individually selecting and scheduling the acts was far too time-consuming so they came up with a lottery system where the acts are chosen and scheduled randomly this way.

Understanding and appreciating the show as it is, bravo all around, nevertheless, an opportunity for a more artistically consistent weekly show is squandered. Perhaps some Harbor area elites with deep pockets could chime in here?!  This Point Fermin location is as good as it gets for its esthetic value and vibe; why not find a way to put together and fund a curated show series with bands/artists that are complementary genre-wise to each other and draw their respective followers?  There are so many original artists out there locally and in the surrounding territory who would jump at the chance to perform in this venerated venue. 

With the random lottery booking method, there are a lot of mismatches genre-wise, potentially turning off (or even scaring!) some folks.  For example, the first act of a day is a doom-metal band, the next is a tribute band specific to a classic rock band, and the next is a roots blues band followed up by a soul dance band!  That is some whiplash-inducing genre changeups there! The suggestion is to consider lining up more like-minded acts so folks can enjoy the whole day music-wise per their tastes.

Music by the Sea has been a success story for many years so perhaps any change is unwanted and unnecessary, perhaps a curated, more original artist-driven lineup would mess up the neighborhood bbq vibe, understood. However, there is a great opportunity missed to turn a Point Fermin concert series into a world-class artistic event.

Music by the Sea
Cost: Free
Venue: Point Fermin Park, 807 West Paseo Del Mar