Summer's last free concert

[ctom]

Carole and I headed down to the Civic Center's park here yesterday at 3 for the last of the free concerts for this year. America was last night's band and they brought back a ton of memories. Great music. Tons of people, but I don't think they breached the 20,000 mark. We went early for a decent spot to set the chairs and found plenty of room when we got there. That extra space was gone by 4. We took a cooler with ham sandwiches and a few sodas plus we took a five year old bottle of blueberry wine and a jug of diet sprite and made some spritzers. Good stuff.

As mentioned, this was he last of the 7 concert series for this year. Now the wait begins to find out who will be here next year. The planning peoples always seem to book at least two bands or acts that have a huge draw. The lead-in bands are always a local number and last night's came from Andrew's digs, Winona, Minnesota. We've seen some great stuff this summer so I'll keep the fingers crossed for next years numbers.

[Fatman]

Have always liked their music!!  You're lucky to have something like that!!

[ctom]

The city has what is called "Thursdays on First" too. Its a whole 6 block long section of 1st Ave west that gets closed down for the day and vendors set up tents and kiosks all along the street for the day. There are two different band stages and each has a different kind of music that's free to all in the evening until 9 PM when they shut things down. Last Thursday we had an Irish Trio of folk singers...from Ireland no less....perform. Carole and I hit that one up too. Great, great Irish ballads. If I listen to any music in the kitchen when I cook its Irish cds. I love bagpipe music. In the garage making tackle I listen to the local country station on the radio or , of course, Irish cds. Got me a tad bit o' the Irish in me.

Its an irony that the free music that they bring into this town is better than that which costs an arm and a leg.