Outdoor Fun in the Sun at the Spring Valley Inn

The Spring Valley Inn was the site for Saturday’s FarmtobersFest 2011, an outdoor party featuring food, fun, drink and hours of live music.

The SVI is a historic venue for fans of The Beat Farmers, a legendary East County band that used to play weekend shows at the bar in the early ’80s. The two surviving original members of the band, Jerry Raney and Rolle Love, performed at Saturday’s event, although appearing in different bands.

Love’s band The Roosters opened the show around 3 p.m. under sunny skies, warming up the crown with their countrified sound, complete with pedal steel guitar. After a well-received two-hour set, The Cactus 5 hit the stage, led by Australian native Charlie Wells.

After the sun went down and the dim stage lights were turned on, Sara Petite and the Sugar Daddies plugged in and delivered perhaps the strongest set of the night, with electric country sounds anchored by Petite’s mesmerizing vocals and spunky charm.

But this was FarmtobersFest, and the dance floor filled quickly as The Farmers—Raney and bandmates Joel Kmak, Chris Sullivan and Corbin Turner—launched into songs old and new, covers and originals. A toast was made to the memory of Buddy Blue, and Kmak’s kick drum cover memorialized Country Dick Montana, the two founding Beat Farmers that died too young. Blue, of La Mesa, died of a heart attack in 2006, age 48. Montana, who lived in Lemon Grove, died in 1995, age 40.

It was inside the tiny confines of the Spring Valley Inn that the foursome honed their musical chops and recorded a demo that led to a contract with Rhino Records. In 2003, Blue’s Clarence Records released that demo on CD, Live at the Spring Valley Inn, 1983 which is now out of print and sells for around $50 online.

In liner notes that Blue titled “The Smell Remains the Same,” he looked back at those days with fondness and a touch of sadness—he left the band in 1986 and was replaced with Joey Harris.

“No one could have told us or the dozen-odd Spring Valley Inn-breds in attendance that we weren’t the greatest band in the world that fine evening long ago,” Blue wrote.