The Super Girl Surf Festival turned the Oceanside Pier Amphitheater into a living postcard on September 19-21, 2025 – salt air, warm sand, and a stage pulsing from late morning to after dusk. Billed as a weekend of free concerts wrapped around elite women’s surf and action sports, it’s a rare Southern California party where sunblock and setlists matter equally. This year’s music slate leaned big and breezy, with Surfer Girl, Artikal Sound System, and Lupe Fiasco anchoring Saturday’s run on the SMKFLWR stage.
The event’s website does its job well: you can jump from the festival overview to the concert series and straight into the day-by-day schedule in a couple of clicks, with artist pages that spell out set times and the exact pier-side address. It’s clean, fast, and built for people standing in sand, not seated at a desk.
As a live-music hang, Super Girl is an easy “yes”: all-ages, free entry, world-class surfing on one side of the pier and a steady stream of bands on the other. Organizers leaned into scale this year, talking up a packed weekend and a full slate of shows; from the sand, it felt exactly like that—busy, breezy, and built for wandering. If you’re planning for next year, the website’s concert hub and schedule pages are the move; they’re clear, current, and make set-chasing simple.
Nuts & bolts for the crate-diggers and planners:
Where: Oceanside Pier Amphitheater, 301 The Strand N, Oceanside, CA.
When we caught them: Surfer Girl 3:45–4:30 p.m.; Artikal Sound System 5:00–6:00 p.m.; Lupe Fiasco 6:30–7:30 p.m. on Saturday.
Why go: Three days, seventeen free concerts, surf pros, and a beach-town sunset that does half the lighting design for you.
If your September needs more shoreline and sound, Super Girl is the kind of festival that leaves salt on your skin and choruses in your head long after the pier lights blink out.
Sand still hot, breeze starting to lift—the perfect pocket for Surfer Girl’s coastal blend of indie-pop, reggae, and surf-rock. Led by Carter Reeves (ex-Aer), the band rides sun-shot melodies and rubbery basslines that feel like a barefoot walk down The Strand. The new album’s confidence shows; the hooks arrive quickly, the choruses open wide, and the crowd leans into it like a late-day set they don’t want to end. A half hour flies by in salted Technicolor.
Surfer Girl:
Carter Reeves – Lead Vocals, Guitar
Jack Pavlina – Guitar, Backing Vocals
Bobby Krakowski – Drums, Keyboards
Sam Callahan – Bass
As the shadows lengthen, Artikal Sound System slides in with one of those sets that tightens the groove while loosening shoulders. Their reggae foundation is supple and unhurried; drum and bass lock like a longboard trimming a clean face, leaving plenty of room for vocal lift and guitar color. Vocalist Logan Rex is one of the greatest stage performers you will ever see. She interacts with the crowd effortlessly, whether it is pumping them up directly or by the way she dances and acts out the lyrics. Her vibe is chill, but she takes no crap. Their songs cross many musical boundaries and styles, with honest lyrics that connect well with the audience. The hour mark hits the way all good sunset sets do—you only notice time passing when the lights change. It’s a vibe that sets the table for a hip-hop legend without breaking the spell.
Artikal Sound System:
Logan Rex – Lead Vocals
Chris Montague – Guitar, Backing Vocals
Christopher Cope – Keyboards, Backing Vocals
Fabian Acuna – Bass
Adam Kampf – Drums
Golden hour, phones up, chorus of gulls overhead. The arena is filled beyond capacity, with desperate fans lining the street and straddling the steps to catch a glimpse over the fence line. Lupe Fiasco steps out and turns the amphitheater into a call-and-response classroom—cadence crisp, wordplay surgical, beats hitting with oceanfront thump. It’s the kind of set that reminds you how rare it is to hear intricate lyricism projected across the open air and still land with precision. Fans rap along to the big moments, but it’s the in-between—breath control, pocket, ease—that carries the show to the shoreline glow of the last chorus. On a beach built for hooks, he delivers bars that bite.
Lupe Fiasco:
Lupe Fiasco: Lead Vocals
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Follow Surfer Girl Online:
Johnnie Crow is a lifelong music lover. He has photographed artists from every genre at concerts, festivals and cruises all across North America.