Levi’s Stadium has been a laughingstock concert venue over its nitpicky 10 p.m. concert cut-off, so Santa Clara just changed it — but only for five nights a year.
Let’s be honest. When the 49ers left town for their fancy-ass new Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, every good San Franciscan was rooting for that stadium to be a failure and a boondoggle. And it was! But while many of the stadium’s turf and traffic issues have either been resolved, or people have just gotten used to them, the weeknight 10 p.m. concert cut-off has earned the stadium a terrible reputation among performers.
A recap: Santa Clara got all upset when U2 flouted the cut-off in 2017. The very next week, Coldplay said ‘Fuck it’ and gleefully jammed until 11 p.m. Ed Sheeran cancelled his concert in protest of Santa Clara’s fussy rules, and the Rolling Stones vowed to never play Levi’s Stadium again on any future tours (they should live so long!).
Well, Santa Clara has gotten the message and they’ve changed the policy, but only in the slightest and most incremental way. NBC Bay Area reports that the Santa Clara City Council has approved a new weeknight curfew time of 11 p.m. — but only for five weeknights a year. And even that very marginal concession was contentious, passing the council by a slim 4-3 margin.
Weekend concerts are still allowed to go on until 11 p.m.
"My job now as an elected official is to make sure we’re going to make as much money as we can off of this stadium," Councilmember Anthony Becker said at the meeting. "And that’s going to come with very transparent oversight. That’s going to make sure operations are going smoothly and making sure the neighbors' concerns are addressed.”
Plenty of Santa Clara residents are already unhappy with this very small concession.
"I feel like maybe during the week it’s a little too much, especially for younger kids," stadium neighbor Arion Lewis told NBC Bay Area. "I do have a younger sister who attends school during the day, and then I work really early in the morning. So I try to go to bed early but it’s kind of hard when you have noise from the stadium.”
Meanwhile in San Francisco, the Giants’ Oracle Park chortles and blows off fireworks at 1 a.m.
So who are the lucky five acts per year that get to play past 10 p.m.? A look at the upcoming Levi’s Stadium concert schedule shows a July engagement with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and three months before that… Uh-oh, it’s Coldplay, who last time said said ‘Fuck it’ and gleefully jammed until 11 p.m.
Image: LevisStadium.com
