City Lights:

Michael Ubaldini is a rich man.

That was my reaction after attending the benefit concert Sunday at Tumbleweeds Bar & Grill, in which more than a dozen independent rockers gathered to raise funds for the Fountain Valley singer’s medical treatment. Ubaldini may not be rich in terms of money — after all, he’s stubbornly gone his entire career without a major label — but he has a wealth of friends, and his following would be the envy of most independent artists.

I’ve covered indie rockers before, once doing a lengthy series on them for sister paper the Daily Pilot. The washout rate in that field is pretty high. Most performers you hear at the local club or coffeehouse support themselves with day jobs, playing their songs between grading papers or fixing faucets. A few try to make it full-time on their music, then give up after a few months when the tip jar doesn’t pay the rent.

It takes patience and determination to turn those small-time gigs into a decent living. But after more than a quarter-century, Ubaldini has made it happen. I’ve seen him play to a packed house at the Marine Room Tavern in Laguna Beach, at a rough-and-tumble biker bar and, once, at a Newport Landing restaurant where I was literally the only person in the audience for the first half of the set. For a self-supporting artist, those are the peaks and valleys that come with the territory. In one of his songs, Ubaldini snarls, “Where’s my reward for a lifetime of bar band dues?”

The show at Tumbleweeds, which garnered a standing-room-only crowd, must have been a reward of some kind.

By the front door of the bar, tucked in a strip mall near the beach, an employee took donations for Ubaldini and sold his CDs and T-shirts. The pool tables turned into silent auction displays, with coffee, toiletries, autographed albums and even an electric guitar up for bidding. An easel near the stage displayed a large poster advertising the show, which patrons signed with a Sharpie.

Ubaldini, who was hospitalized with a heart valve infection in November, was too weak to attend the show, but his spirit was palpable everywhere in the room. Fans milled around in T-shirts featuring the cover art of his recent greatest hits CD, “Empty Bottles & Broken Guitar Strings.” On the stage a series of bands performed sets of Ubaldini’s songs mixed with his favorite covers, while a video camera in back captured the event for the artist to watch at home.

It was a terrific show. Ubaldini has long prided himself on being a keeper of American musical traditions, and as the Lonesome Playboys, Girls Nite Out and other bands took the stage, it sounded like a sampling of our musical history — a little country, a little blues, a little Bo Diddley — from the last 50 years.

The day after the show, I called Ubaldini to ask if he’d seen the video

“I was blown away that that many people cared,” he said. “It was kind of overwhelming to see that many people. You don’t think that many people notice you when you’ve been flying under the radar for so many years.”

He was busy writing songs, he said, and anticipating his first gig as soon as he was well enough to play again. Judging from the turnout, I think many other people are eager for it, too.

City Editor MICHAEL MILLER can be reached at (714) 966-4617 or at [email protected] .