Donavon Frankenreiter

September 18, 2010

Time(s): 8:00 p.m.
Location: Balloon Park | Map & Directions
Free Admission, Parking $10

If an award was given out for “shortest distance traveled to the Great Park stage,” this year’s winner would be Donavon Frankenreiter, who lives just over the hills in Laguna Beach. Of course, his path to fame took a longer route, in which he’s traveled the world both as a musician and as a respected professional surfer.

While he’s surfed professionally for more than two decades, music fans learned of him in 2004, when his debut solo album yielded the radio hit “Free.” OC audiences, however, have known him since 1996, when he formed the band Sunchild. Taking its name from a William Blake poem and its inspiration from ’60s and ’70s jam-band rock (Frankenreiter’s sons are named Hendrix and Ozzy), Sunchild built up a considerable local following and released two albums.

The title of their first one, 2000’s Barefoot and Live, pretty well describes Frankenreiter’s sound. He doesn’t sing about surfing, but the sport infuses his work, with its unforced wisdom and an evident love of nature and harmony. With a voice like a warm summer breeze, Frankenreiter has often been compared to his surfing musician friend Jack Johnson, which he doesn’t mind at all, though he stressed to one interviewer, “We’re totally different people coming from the same place.”
Born in Downey, Frankenreiter began surfing when he was growing up in San Clemente, where there’s also a long tradition of surfers getting together on the beach with their guitars and ukuleles. He continues to divide his time between the two, saying it keeps both fresh for him.

He’s issued three albums in his solo career, the most recent being Pass It Around on Lost Highway Records, where he’s labelmates with Willie Nelson and Elvis Costello. It’s his most produced album, recorded at Hollywood’s historic Sunset Sound Recorders, but it’s every bit as easy-going as his Recycled Recipes collection of cover songs recorded for $250 in his bassist’s kitchen.
It’s sure to be a special night of music in the OC Great Park. As his tour posters urge, “Come see him live, before he goes back in the water!” Official Website

Comedy Corner Line-up

Comedy Corner features local stand-up comedians performing outside the Hangar Café at 7:00 p.m. before each Saturday night concert.

Headliner: Taylor Williamson (Last Comic Standing, Comedy Central, Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson)
Special Guest(s): Robbie Pickard (National Lampoon, Caroline’s on Broadway), Ryan Niemiller (NACA, the Improv, College Headliner)