There’s that saying in baseball: In the event you construct it, they’ll come. It’s a message the Chicago Cubs group heard loudly in 2005 because it began to carve out a brand new use for the ballpark on non-game days, turning it into a preferred live performance venue.
Launching with Jimmy Buffett over Labor Day weekend in 2005, Wrigley’s dwell music program has thrived over the previous 20 years, staging 80 reveals and turning into a proverbial area of goals for music followers.
Whether or not ready out Pearl Jam’s epic 2013 rain delay, seeing Tom Petty’s last Chicago present in 2017 or witnessing Pink fly across the Pleasant Confines like a real-life Tinkerbell in 2023, there are a lot of “you needed to be there” moments. In truth, in 2013, Rolling Stone hailed Wrigley Area as quantity two in its checklist of 10 finest arenas and stadiums in America.
“Wrigley has turn into synonymous with music in the summertime, and that’s one thing we wish to proceed,” mentioned Crane Kenney, Cubs president of enterprise operations. The milestone 2025 live performance season begins Thursday with Publish Malone, who will likely be adopted later this spring and summer time with performances by Chris Brown, the Jonas Brothers, ATEEZ and Stray Youngsters (the latter two marking a primary for Okay-pop on the ballpark).
“What we’ve discovered is we’ve got followers who love music right here that will by no means attend a baseball sport,” Kenney mentioned. “It’s just a little bit like Purple Rocks or Madison Sq. Backyard. [Fans] don’t wish to simply see Pearl Jam. [They] wish to see them at Wrigley.”
It’s not simply the followers. Bands adore it, too — particularly locals like Fall Out Boy who performed in 2018 and 2023. “Rising up on the north aspect of Chicago, going to video games at Wrigley is a religious expertise,” band member Pete Wentz mentioned. “The sounds and smells there take me again to going as a child. There isn’t a extra hallowed and iconically Chicago rock ‘n’ roll second than getting the possibility to play a present there.”
“Jackie Robinson, Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig performed right here, and I stood within the place the place they as soon as stood. … My Nice Aunt Rosella’s ashes are a part of the dust within the outfield,” mentioned Bare Raygun’s Jeff Pezzati, recalling when the band opened for Foo Fighters in 2015. The Chicago punk icon’s supervisor, Lou Lombardo, additionally remembered how significant it was for bassist Pierre Kezdy, who died in 2020. “After his stroke in 2011, he wasn’t positive if he would play bass once more. After I spoke to Dave Grohl, and the Wrigley present was put into movement, Pierre used that as motivation to get sturdy sufficient to play.”
Kenney even recalled how Roger Waters, on his personal accord, referred to as into WXRT after bringing “The Wall” to Wrigley in 2012 to gush to the radio station about taking part in the ballpark, evaluating it to the acoustics of opera homes in London.
Kenney and Carl Rice, former vice chairman of huge scale Wrigley Area occasions and tasks, have been instrumental within the authentic concept and growth when the Tribune Co. owned the Cubs. All of it germinated as a byproduct of the electrical 2003 Cubs group that got here alive in postseason glory. “The 2003 group captured everybody’s creativeness,” Kenney mentioned. That group and the 1984 group enthralled followers but in addition broke hearts by failing to succeed in the World Collection. These groups put extra organizational deal with “our chase to win a World Collection and simply being extra aggressive,” Kenney mentioned.
To do this, the group wished additional sources of income to assist offset Main League Baseball’s aggressive steadiness or “luxurious tax” on groups with payrolls over a sure threshold. “Tickets and concessions, media rights, parking and suites … it’s all topic to an enormous tax … [but] that’s not true of music, music is exempt,” Kenney mentioned. Early on as a part of the pitch to media, Kenney mentioned, “Elton John goes to assist us win baseball video games.”
The Ricketts household, who purchased the Cubs in 2009, helped spur the live performance program with a $1 billion funding in 2014 to construct out the neighborhood as a part of the 1060 Undertaking. And, actually, of the 80 reveals at Wrigley, 56 have come after 2016. In newer years, the Cubs group has established an inner workforce, Wrigley Area Occasions, to guide the curation of extra non-baseball occasions, together with concert events.
Previous to 2005, Wrigley had at the least one different live performance — an orchestral efficiency in 1922. Stadium rock got here to the ballpark late. At different venues, it dates again to the early days of the music. The Beatles’ efficiency at Shea Stadium in New York in 1965 was thought-about a milestone. Practically a decade earlier, in 1957, Elvis Presley performed at Sick’s Stadium in Seattle. Right now, Boston’s Fenway Park has an analogous mannequin to Wrigley, going again to 1959 when Ray Charles first performed a one-off and 1973 when the Newport Jazz Pageant introduced acts to the park. Thirty years later, in 2003, when Bruce Springsteen reinvigorated the idea at Fenway, Kenney was there and recalled “it was a proof of idea that it could possibly be achieved.”
Navigating the Cubs’ schedule and the neighborhood
Not that it’s ever been a simple endeavor. Reserving reveals at Wrigley Area is a bit like making an attempt to resolve a Rubix dice. “One of the best ways to sort of clarify that is it’s actually a funnel,” mentioned Morgan Bucciferro, Cubs senior director for operations and visitor experiences.
The very first thing to think about is who’s really touring in the course of the comparatively small window of sometimes Memorial Day to Labor Day and has open dates when the Cubs are on the highway. “From there, we’ve got to see which tour specifics will really match into our stadium,” Bucciferro mentioned, noting that not each manufacturing works for the distinctive setup of Wrigley Area. For instance, for U2’s 360° Tour in 2009, the enormous claw stage design wasn’t possible for Wrigley, and the band moved to Soldier Area.
A part of the problem is the design of the 111-year-old ballpark, which nonetheless makes use of its massive “elephant gate” on the primary final analysis to load in concert events (the title is a throwback to when Wrigley hosted circuses and introduced in elephants by means of the opening). The gate is much from the place the live performance phases are constructed in middle area, making labor a consideration. As is defending the taking part in area. In 2015, then-manager Joe Maddon made headlines for claiming an AC/DC present in September “completely tousled our infield.”
Protections have superior since then. “We’re actually lucky that know-how has come such a good distance on the terraplas and the membrane they put down to guard the sector,” mentioned Kenney, including that there’s no seating on the infield as one other protecting measure.
“By way of playability, we actually haven’t had any points. … Morgan and her group are miracle employees in getting the sector again in playable form.”
It’s a course of that takes roughly 4 days, mentioned Bucciferro. “What we sometimes wish to see is 2 days to construct the stage. … On the third day, we deliver within the tour manufacturing. On the fourth day, we host the present, after which that night time we start to tear down.”
A part of the Cubs group accountable for Wrigley Area concert events: President of Enterprise Operation Crane Kenney, Director of Occasions Megan Gaseor, Senior Director of Operations and Visitor Expertise Morgan Bucciferro, Chief Industrial Officer Colin Faulkner, Vice President Wrigley Area Occasions Andy Blackburn, Senior Vice President Marquee 360 Cale Vennum and Director and Chief Operations Officer David Cromwell.
Barry Brecheisen/For the Solar-Occasions
Different points have additionally been labored out through the years. Not like different stadiums, Wrigley Area sits in spitting distance of residences and colleges. When Fall Out Boy performed in 2023, the present was so loud that individuals so far as Lincoln Park and Ravenswood mentioned they might hear it. It was chalked as much as uncommon “atmospheric circumstances” with intense winds carrying the acoustics farther than regular.
In 2013, present forty fourth Ward Alderman Bennett Lawson, who had additionally been on the employees of his predecessor Tom Tunney since 2004, mentioned the workplace was flooded with complaints after Pearl Jam performed till 2 a.m. A yr later, town’s night time sport ordinance, which additionally governs concert events, was amended with steep fines to mainly guarantee it couldn’t occur once more.
Of that occasion, Kenney mentioned, “It was an in-the-moment choice pushed by the artist who wished to proceed the present. The town labored with us to make it occur.”
It nonetheless stays certainly one of his — and lots of followers’ — favourite recollections, notably seeing Ernie Banks be part of Eddie Vedder onstage for a duet of Vedder’s tune “All The Manner” only a yr earlier than Banks died. Uber Cubs fan Vedder, who was not accessible for remark for this story, additionally has been identified to play music within the group clubhouse and depart guitars behind within the gamers’ lounge as a method of bridging the hole since gamers by no means get to see reveals on the ballpark.
In 2023, shortly earlier than taking workplace, Lawson surveyed practically 2,000 residents and located a largely constructive reception to Wrigley concert events: 37% attended a number of reveals that yr and simply 8% of residents within the ward wished fewer total concert events and occasions. Those that dwell within the 60613, 60614, 60640 and 60657 zip codes are additionally invited to join a “Wrigley Area Neighbors” program that provides common communications and permits residents who’re registered to purchase live performance tickets earlier than most of the people. Plus, it’s good for enterprise.
“When Woman Gaga performed on Monday night time most just lately, we have been having dinner at El Jardin [on Clark Street] and the proprietor came visiting and mentioned, ‘Can we’ve got each live performance on a Monday night time?’” Ald. Lawson mentioned.
He too is an enormous fan of the reveals, and recalled how particular it was to see the primary Wrigley live performance, which occurred per week after Hurricane Katrina. As a part of the night time, Buffett carried out the Steve Goodman tune “Metropolis of New Orleans” within the bleachers throughout a solemn second.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ 2017 present was significant for an additional somber purpose, because it was the final time Petty performed Chicago earlier than his dying that October. “I don’t like to have a look at that tour in that method,” mentioned Heartbreaker keyboardist/pianist Benmont Tench. “Lord, I want he was nonetheless right here. We have been taking part in very well and none of us anticipated it.” Tench recalled having the once-in-a-lifetime alternative to go as much as the organist’s sales space at Wrigley and play. “To listen to it ricochet across the stadium, it was marvelous.”
As for the way forward for the concert events at Wrigley, Kenney mentioned the group needs to have “extra music and extra variety. Smaller reveals with much less of a stage build-out are a chance. This season, the Landmark Data set up at Gallagher Manner, a small gathering space simply exterior the ballpark, additionally presents dwell music across the 1:20 p.m. house video games on Fridays. “We hope to be a spot for everybody to come back and discover one thing for themselves,” mentioned Bucciferro. “Baseball is at all times going to be our number-one precedence … however we actually attempt to make this a spot the place individuals can see several types of music and expertise several types of acts.”
