The B-52’s are Set to Perform at the 2023 California Mid-State Fair in Paso Robles! Original Lead Vocalist of Foreigner Lou Gramm will be the Special Guest! Tickets Go On Sale on APRIL 14 starting 10:00 am!

 

(PASO ROBLES, CA) – The California Mid-State Fair is pleased to announce that The B-52’s

have been confirmed to perform in concert on Saturday, July 22 at 7:30pm. Opening the show

will be special guest Lou Gramm, the original lead vocalist of Foreigner. The concert will take

place in the Chumash Grandstand Arena at the Paso Robles Event Center and is part of the

Michelob Ultra Concert Series presented by Visit SLO CAL. This will be The B-52’s second

appearance at the California Mid-State Fair, having last played the Main Grandstand in 1998.

Ticket prices for the show are $40, $60, $80, $90, and $130 (Pit, standing only) and will go

on sale Friday, April 14, 2023, starting at 10:00 am. Tickets can be purchased on the

California Mid-State Fair’s Official website www.MidStateFair.com. The Box Office cannot

guarantee the authenticity or validity of any tickets purchased outside of our official

channels.

It is well known that The B-52s are The World’s Greatest Party Band. Nearly 40 years and over

20 million albums into their career, there can be no doubt as to why they remain one of rock

music’s most beloved and enduring bands. Any mystery concerning the band’s longevity and

ongoing appeal is immediately solved when exposed to a B-52s concert experience. From

groundbreaking songs like “Rock Lobster,” “Dance This Mess Around,” “Private Idaho,” “Roam”

and “Deadbeat Club,” to chart-topping hits like “Love Shack,” to their thrilling reemergence on

the pop scene with their 2008 CD Funplex, which bowed at #11 on the Top 200. The B-52s’

unforgettable dance-rock tunes start a party every time their music begins.

Formed on an October night in 1976 following drinks at an Athens, GA, Chinese restaurant, the

band played their first gig at a friend’s house on Valentine’s Day 1977. Naming themselves

after Southern slang for exaggerated 'bouffant’ hairdos, the newly christened B52s (Fred

Schneider, Kate Pierson, Keith Strickland, Cindy Wilson, and Ricky Wilson) began weekend

road trips to New York City for gigs at CBGB's and a handful of other venues. Before long, their

thrift store aesthetic and genre-defying songs were the talk of the post-punk underground. A

record deal soon followed and their self-titled debut disc, produced by Chris Blackwell, sold

more than 500,000 copies on the strength of their first singles, the garage rock party classic

“Rock Lobster,” and “52 Girls.” The album placed at #152 on Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest

Albums of All Time” and #99 on VH1’s “Greatest Albums of All Time.”

Gramm was the lead vocalist on all of Foreigner's hit songs, including "Feels Like the First

Time", "Cold as Ice", "Long, Long Way from Home", "Hot Blooded", "Double Vision", "Blue

Morning, Blue Day", "Head Games", "Dirty White Boy", "Urgent", "Juke Box Hero", "Break It Up"

PHYSICAL: 2198 Riverside Avenue, Paso Robles, CA 93446

MAILING: PO Box 8, Paso Robles, CA 93447

www.midstatefair.com

and "Say You Will". He co-wrote most of the songs for the band, which achieved two of its

biggest hits with the ballads "Waiting for a Girl Like You", which spent ten weeks at #2 on the

1981-82 American Hot 100, and "I Want to Know What Love Is", which was a #1 hit

internationally (US & UK) in 1985. Their first 8 singles cracked the Billboard Top 20 (4 went Top

10) making them the first group since the Beatles to achieve this in 1980.

The 2023 California Mid-State Fair runs July 19 through July 30 and this year’s theme is “Shake,

Rattle & Roll!” Connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok.