Jimmy Buffett’s Hermosa concert to be recreated at St. Rocke
by Garth Meyer
A tribute band will re-enact a 2014 Jimmy Buffett on-the-sand Hermosa Beach concert at St. Rocke Saturday, May 11.
The nine-piece Jimmy’s Buffet is led by Chris Maddox, a South Bay native formerly of the Elvis Presley tribute “Graceband.”
“Jimmy Buffett carved out this really sweet spot for the world,” Maddox said. “Playing his music has been a joy. For Buffett, everybody has a story; most are about tying generations together or it being defining in their life.”
Jimmy’s Buffet formed two years ago, when Maddox was talking to a bar manager in San Diego, where Graceband would play, with its four-man horn section.
“I had a gig before I had a band,” Maddox said of the reception to his new idea.
Getting the group together, he went all out.
“We’re going to have a steel pan player, none of this MIDI bulls—,” he described of the process.
The act aims to “celebrate the music and vibes of Jimmy Buffett with an authentic recreation of his sound and party-like atmosphere,” according to the band’s press release.
A graduate of South Torrance High, Maddox stood in line outside Musicland off of PCH in the summer of ‘89 for tickets to see Guns N’ Roses open for The Rolling Stones, the night before his SAT. Now he’s playing Jimmy Buffett songs at St. Rocke, after his day job as a Bay Area tech firm sales director.
“I tell my wife, it’s my golf. It costs money. It costs time away from the family,” he said. “But it’s my passion.”
Tickets $25, 8 p.m. doors open at 7 p.m. 142 Pacific Coast Highway