They came to Encinitas last Saturday from as far away as Spain, Costa Rica and Canada to support the local band Switchoot and its annual Bro-Am surf contest and concert to benefit homeless and at-risk teens.
An estimated 10,000 people crammed onto the sand of Moonlight Beach for a day-long event that organizers said raised tens of thousands of dollars for area chapters of Stand Up for Kids. It was the eighth annual Bro-Am, an event that over the years has raised more than half a million dollars for the charity.
If Fans of the Foot—as Switchfoot fans are called—were happy to be basking on the beach on a remarkably clear and sunny June day, so were the members of Switchfoot.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are Switchfoot and this is our hometown,” lead singer Jon Foreman proudly proclaimed to a raucous crowd moment’s into the band’s one-hour-long set.
Earlier in the day, drummer Chad Butler gushed about how great it was for band members who spend so much of their time traveling the world playing concerts to be right back in the town they call home.
“It’s so great to come home and play a hometown show,” Butler said. “We just love it here.”
The surf contest that kicked off the day was a star-studded affair, with Cardiff-by-the-Sea local surfing legend Rob Machado, former world champion surfer Tom Curren and other top surfers from around the world shredding the waves.
Machado staged his own junior pro contest for the area’s young surfers, with the top three finishers each earning a new surfboard as a prize.
