On the bright side, at least matchbox 20's Rob Thomas won't be here: Gavin Newsom took some time out from romancing to regretfully announce that a planned free Santana concert at the Civic Center on April 22, in connection with the centennial festivities for the April 18, 1906 earthquake, has been indefinitely postponed due to lack of funds. We're not super huge Santana fans or anything, but it's cool that he was going to play free of charge -- and we were definitely disappointed once we heard that Green Day was possibly also in negotiations to play that same show. We love Green Day!

Newsom is doing his best to put a positive spin on it: they're going to keep fundraising, and you know, an earthquake celebration isn't about the date of the earthquake, it's about Survival! and Community Togetherness! -- that's what we're celebrating and that'll go on all year! A concert is appropriate at any time! "It will be even bigger and better than what we had been planning," Newsom bravely said, though he also declined to state when that bigger and better concert might actually take place, or even be announced.

We hope the show'll be like Lollapalooza, with the big names on the center stage and a smaller stage for local acts! Barring that, we hope Huey Lewis and the News play.

Picture of Carlos Santana performing at the 2004 SF Blues Festival