Tacoma Old Town Blues Festival

By weeklyvolcano on July 8, 2006

Tacoma is simply teeming with talented blues artists, and once a year that fact is demonstrated full blast at the Tacoma Old Town Blues Festival. This Saturday from noon to 1 a.m. over 15 blues bands at five venues will blur the lines between verse and chorus with blazing solos, soulful crooning and lovable tunes both old and new. The published lineup includes Nick Vigarino and The Meantown Blues, Lil' Dave Thompson, Bump Kitchen, Loose Gravel & The Quarry, Blues Alliance, Little Bill,  Butterbean, Rusty Williams Band, Witherspoon, Michal Miller Band, Curley Cook and Annette Taborn, Steve Cheseborough, Zero Down Blues Band and Pleasant Fools Band. The unpublished additions are kept in a deep, dark vault guarded by Hell's Angels and a few junkyard dogs. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.  What you will see is money raised from the festival sent to the Breast Cancer Resource Center. Saturday, July 8, noon to 1 a.m., $10-$20, North 30th and McCarver, Old Town Tacoma, www.tacomaoldtownbluesfest.com. - Angela Jossy

Today's schedule

Old Town Park, Free
Noon, Witherspoon
12:45 p.m., Steve Cheseborough
1:45 p.m., Pleasant Fools
3 p.m., Zero Down Blues
4 p.m., Michael Miller
5:30 p.m., Blues Alliance

Mountaineers beer garden
12:15 p.m., Little Bill & Friends
4 p.m., Butterbean

Slavonian Blues Cafe, all ages
2 p.m., workshop with Steve Cheseborough
4 p.m., Rusty Williams Band

In the clubs
8 p.m.-midnight, Lil’ Dave Thompson, Slavonian Blues Cafe
8:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m., Bump Kitchen, The Spar
8:30 p.m.-1 a.m., Loose Gravel & the Quarry, Mountaineers
8:30 p.m.-1 a.m., Michael Miller, Nick Vigarino & Meantown Blues, Slavonian Hall