This is my third summer living in the Portland, OR area, but yesterday was the first time I had been to the annual Waterfront Blues Festival, which is held each summer around July 4th in South Hawthorne Waterfront Park along the Willamette River.
The festival got onto my calendar this year because the famous (famous to me) Ethiopian musician Hailu Mergia was going to be there on the 3rd day of the 3-day festival, but I procrastinated on buying tickets. Despite a strong Thursday lineup that included Rose City Band, Garcia Birthday Band, True Loves, and Cymande(!), we hadn't planned on going all three days, just Saturday, July 4th. Another reason for hesitancy was because my wife had major knee surgery four months ago and she wasn't sure until recently whether she'd be ready for all the walking and standing that comes with a music festival, but she was! When I found out earlier this week that Hailu Mergia wasn't going to be able to make it my initial reaction was "oh no!", but we decided to check it out anyway.
I didn't know what to expect other than to expect it to be crowed, which it both was and wasn't. The festival entrance is a short walk from the Yamhill District MAX light rail stop so we took the train down. Very easy to get to. Not knowing what the food options or lines would be like, we didn't want to show up hungry so we stopped into Paddy's, a great Irish pub just across the street from the MAX stop, and got a late lunch and watched the first half of the France vs. Paraguay World Cup match before going in. Our plan was to just go to the festival from about 3pm to 8pm and be back home before the fireworks and we pretty much stuck to that plan.
There are three stages total and the way they have it set up is pretty cool. The two stages in the primary part of the festival grounds are angled at opposite ends of the same riverfront area, and it's timed so that when the music on one stage ends the band on the opposite stage begins almost immediately. If you position your chairs a certain way you can see both stages and have an idyllic view of the river. There's also a big video screen set up between these two stages. To get to the 3rd stage you simply walk under the Hawthorne bridge and there it is. The whole festival area is relatively condensed and they definitely make great use of the available space.
We saw full sets by Brittany Davis, Jujuba, and Don Was and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble, and most of the performances by Ural Thomas and the Pain and Jenny Don't and the Spurs. Due to overlapping stage times we completely missed The Seratones and Orquestra Pacifico Tropical but you can't be in two places at once. Even though it has the word Blues in the festival title, the music that we saw ranged from jazz to African to soul to Grateful Dead meets Motown to honky-tonk country. It was quite diverse. The Waterfront Blues Festival reminded me of the Richmond Folk Festival in Richmond, VA that I used to attend every year.
The weather was absolutely perfect and the overall vibe was very easy going, respectful and relaxed. You can bring in empty reusable water bottles or factory sealed water bottles. You're supposed to bring low-profile lawn chairs but after knee surgery Laura said that ain't happening, so we just brought a couple cheap-oh Dick's Sporting Goods folding chairs and that worked out fine. We were able to position our chairs near the Stay and Sway stage then walk over to the other two stages as needed. No hassles whatsoever. It got more crowded as the day went on but it was easy to get drinks and there wasn't even a line for the porta potties until right when we were leaving. I love a good city center music festival and next year I might plan for all three days.
A lot of people come down to the Portland waterfront to watch the 4th of July fireworks, so the volume of people was increasing rapidly as we made our way out in the opposite direction of the foot traffic. We don't really care about fireworks, and it was time to get home to our dog, plus we've seen Tank and the Bangas before so I didn't feel compelled to stick around after dark. We got home just as the sun was setting. It was a perfect day.
***
No comments:
Post a Comment