Hometown Benefit Concert: Neon Trees Attract Fans From Near and Far

It started with a whisper.

Those are the lyrics of a very famous Neon Trees pop rock song, but in outgoing Vista Murrieta High School Principal Darren Daniel’s words, it is true.

Five months ago, Daniel said he was standing on the 30-yard line during a Bronco football game talking with Jordan Allen, the brother of Neon Trees’ lead guitarist, Chris Allen. Jordan is a coach for Linfield Christian School in Temecula.

Daniel said he and Jordan talked about how the football team needed new helmets. The helmets were coming up on their 10-year mark, upon which they expire. The school’s marching band’s uniforms were also 10 years old.

The two talked about a benefit concert with Neon Trees—both Chris Allen’s and Tyler Glenn’s siblings graduated from Vista Murrieta High School—but it wasn’t until the spring when Linfield was at Vista Murrieta for a track meet, that event materialized. Daniel said, “ironically,” he got a call that same day from the band’s management.

Saturday was the day.

Lead Singer Tyler Glenn and the rest of the band seemed right at home. Glenn shared with fans how many of the songs they performed were written in Murrieta—one on Whitewood Road, said the Chaparral High School graduate.

Both he and Allen’s families still call Murrieta home.

Local fans did not miss the chance to see the band in concert.

Maureen Jacobsen of Temecula brought her two young sons, Robert, 10, and Erick, 7, both budding musicians.

“I heard about the concert through a friend,” Jacobsen said. “It was for a good cause, and we only stood in line for an hour. It felt shorter because we were with friends. It was great, very organized.”

Others traveled to see the platinum-selling musicians.

Morgan Pilote, 16, of Stewart, Fla., flew with her mother, Dana Pilote, to attend the concert. Neon Trees is Morgan’s favorite band, and the concert was a reward for Morgan’s good grades, they said.

“Tyler has my heart but they are all amazing,” Morgan said, who got to take a photograph with the band. “They are great to their fans and their music is amazing.”

Bernie Ramcke and his wife drove four-and-a-half hours from Buckeye, Ariz., to bring their 18-year-old daughter to the show.

“We have been trying to take her to a Neon Trees concert and this just popped up one day,” the Ramckes said. “We thought it was perfect, we can drive to it and they should play a lot, so we were looking forward to that.”

Play they did, after two opening Southern California bands, The New Division and The Active Set, got the crowd going.

The large-scale concert was a first for the city, and involved months of preparation, according to Murrieta police Sgt. Robert Anderson, who was at the event Saturday.

“We wanted to make sure everybody was going to be safe and have a good time,” Anderson said, noting there were motorcycle officers on the street outside the venue as well as uniformed and undercover officers inside. “We’ll be here until everybody is safely out.”

A security company used metal detectors as concert-goers entered the stadium.

The hope is that many similar events will follow.

“We wanted to provide this opportunity for our kids,” Principal Daniel said. “Vista Murrieta High School is a special place, and to be able to do something not only for this community—but for kids coming in from all over the place and having a great time—I hope our community would support something like this again because I think our kids deserve it.”