PORT ANGELES — The Juan de Fuca Festival will celebrate its 25th anniversary this weekend with many returning favorite performers and some new ones added to the mix.
The festival will begin at 5:15 tonight at the Vern Burton Community Center, 308 E. Fourth St., Port Angeles. The music will go on until 10 tonight. Saturday and Sunday hours will be from noon to 10 p.m. while Monday’s concerts will be presented from 12:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
With four different stages, the biggest frustration might be an inability to be at more than one place at the same time.
The Main Stage and Chamber Stage will be located at the Vern Burton Center. The Elks Ballroom stage and Elks Stage 2 will be in the Naval Elks building, 131 E. First St.
Four-day passes are available for $85 at the gate when the festival kicks off today.
Tickets can be purchased online at jffa.org or at Port Book and News in Port Angeles and Joyful Noise in Sequim.
Day passes will be available only at the gate — $28 for today or Monday and $38 for Saturday or Sunday.
Children 12 and younger will be admitted free.
Half-price tickets are available with a student ID.
Long recognized for the diversity and sheer quality of its performing artists, the festival is really outdoing itself in 2018, according to organizer Dan Maguire in a press release.
“We’re particularly proud of the fact that even as it’s grown from its relatively modest beginnings to its place today as one of the great West Coast festivals, the Juan de Fuca Festival still retains its charming small-town roots,” he said.
In honor of the anniversary, the Juan de Fuca Foundation of the Arts is bringing back some favorite artists from the early years of the festival.
Longtime attendees will remember such performers as Laura Love, Pearl Django, Christian Swenson, Tiller’s Folly, Scott Cossu, Casey Neill and Carolyn Cruso.
Also joining the festival are some special favorites from more recent times, including the incredible MarchFourth, Sam Chase, Curtis Salgado, Ballet Victoria, the Too Loose Cajun/Zydeco Band, David Jacobs-Strain and Halie Loren.
For more about familiar faces at the festival, see today’s Arts & Entertainment section in the Peninsula Daily News.
Some brand new artists — although certainly not new to the national and international festival circuit — are such performers as Con Brio, Royal Jelly Jive, All Our Exes Live in Texas, Keith Greeninger, World’s Finest, Rosie and the Riveters, Mouths of Babes and Deep Blue Jam.
The festival offers more than music on the four stages.
Light show: New this year, the festival will feature a light show at the Main Stage. It will kick off each evening at 5 p.m.
Street fair: This year’s Street Fair will have more than double the number of artisan booths as last year. There also will be many new food booths for fine eating.
A beer/wine garden, located in the middle of the Street Fair, will offer a cavalcade of artistic wares.
Other outdoor activities include yoga, drum circles and a variety of activities for the kids.
After Hours In the Clubs: The music will keep going each night of the festival after the stages close down. After-hours music can be heard at New Moon Craft Tavern, 130 S. Lincoln St., and The Metta Room, 132 E. Front St. at 10:30 p.m.
Camping: For the first time, the festival will offer an opportunity to camp near the festival grounds.
For just $10 per person, per night, campers can set up a tent at Civic Field on Race Street.
Restrooms will be open. Campers can check in and pay at the gate.
A sampling of bands
Many bands, some old and some new to the Juan de Fuca Festival, will be offered this year. Here are just a few:
• Con Brio: Called “the best new live act in America” by PopMatters, Con Brio has a funky, psychedelic-soul San Francisco sound.
• MarchFourth: With stilt walkers and dancers and high-energy funk, MarchFourth offers a spectacle of music and costumes.
• Curtis Salgado: The original Blues Brother, Salgado continues to be recognized as the best by his peers, sweeping the 2017 Blues Awards in Memphis — as he did in 2103 with his previous CD.
• Laura Love: After a 10-year hiatus, this award winning “folk-funk singer/songwriter/bassist is back. “Her music is exuberant…reaching out with an almost fervent joy,” according to the New York Times.
• Too Loose Cajun/Zydeco Band: The band includes two fiddles, two guitars, accordion, piano, traditional Louisiana rub-boards and a kickin’ rhythm section, Maguire said.
• Ballet Victoria: The festival features the dramatic, breathtaking, often laced with humor, dancing artistry of this group every year.
• All My Exes Live in Texas: Recent winner of an Australian Grammy, All My Exes is a collection of Australian singer/songwriters — combining to create four-part folk-harmonies.
• The Sam Chase: Two-time winners of the San Francisco Weekly Best of the Bay Reader’s Poll, this band has emerged, perhaps, as Port Angeles’ favorite out-of-town band, according to Maguire.
• Royal Jelly Jive: This San Francisco band combines soul, rock, swing and hip hop.
• Pearl Django: With a performance history spanning over two decades, Pearl Django endures as one of the most highly regarded Hot Club/Django Reinhardt-style groups in the world today, Maguire said.
• Rosie and the Riveters: This Saskatchewan band performs folk music with a vintage 1940s flair, with every note meant to empower and challenge, Maguire said.
• Deep Blue Jam: An Americana Roots/Rock/Funk fusion jam band, these veteran musicians have played with folks like Steve Miller, Jerry Garcia, Levon Helm and Phil Lesh.
For information including performance schedules and complete lineup, go to http://jffa.org.
Steve Gilchrist of Port Angeles uses a scissor lift Thursday to hang a Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts banner from the ceiling of Vern Burton Community Center in Port Angeles, one of the main venues for this weekend’s four-day music event. (Keith Thorpe/Peninsula Daily News)
