Musical Fireworks and Hot August Nights
Brooklyn Roads is looking forward to another lively summer of music, despite a few setbacks on the Coney Island front. After 10 rockin’ years, The Village Voice has pulled its Siren Festival out of MCU Park and, due to a well-publicized lawsuit, Asser Levy Park is no longer a viable venue for the annual Seaside Summer Concert Series. The good news is that the latter has found a new home on Coney Island’s West 21st Street, where the Ringling Brothers circus has performed in recent years. The new site is just east of the Brooklyn Cyclones’ MCU Park, where local legends Kenny Vance & The Planotones will headline Doo Wop in the Ballpark on July 30.
If you want to hear some great gospel, soul and R&B (and who wouldn’t?), Wingate Field is the place to go for the 29th edition of the Martin Luther King Jr. Free Concert Series. The lineup is expected to be announced in late June.
One of the borough’s more recent success stories is the Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival, the brainchild of Brooklyn Bodega founder Wes Jackson. The festival, which drew more than 15,000 fans in 2010, celebrates its 7th year in July and once again it will be a weeklong affair of music, dance, art, film, partying and family fun. The format was expanded last year in order to “provide more resources for developing artists and entrepreneurs, more outlets for local business and of course showcase the best and brightest our culture has to offer,” Jackson told Brooklyn Roads. “We go out of our way to get local acts and artists who don’t usually play Brooklyn.” Past headliners have included the likes of Big Daddy Kane, De la Soul and Lupe Fiasco.Old school, new school, funk and soul artists will converge upon downtown Brooklyn and the waterfront the second week of July.
Once again Celebrate Brooklyn! at the Prospect Park Bandshell will feature a mix of internationally renowned artists and local acts. This summer the latter will include the complex, emotive sounds of Animal Collective, the eclectic music of singer/ multi-instrumentalist Sufjan Steven, the neo-disco of Midnight Magic, and the exuberant kid-friendly fun of Grammy winner Dan Zanes, accompanied by the Brooklyn Youth Orchestra and the dance moves of Bed-Stuy Veterans. Among others scheduled to perform are Dr. John, Los Lobos, The Heavy, The Decemberists, Bon Iver, Justin Townes Earle and Court Yard Hounds (Martie Maguire and Emily Robison of the Dixie Chicks). It all kicks off with the June 10 evening gala featuring a concert by whistling singer/songwriter/violinist Andrew Bird. He may not be from Brooklyn, but where better listen to Bird songs than in Prospect Park?
The music continues in this summer in a number of parks Brooklyn, asSummerstage comes to Herbert Von King Park for a number of music events, including Brooklyn Teen Family Day on June 19th, Ozomotli at Red Hook Park on June 22nd and The Metropolitan Opera at Brooklyn Bridge Park on July 13th – all free of charge.
The Northside Music Festival returns with Guided by Voices on June 18th at McCarren Park as a benefit for the Open Space Alliance and a kick off for theWilliamsburg Waterfront series that includes Death Cab for Cutie, Sonic Youth and Brooklyn’s own TV On The Radio on September 8th, while the free “Hot Summer Nights” series at Kingsborough Community College kicks off on July 2nd with the Brooklyn Community Wind Ensemble. The Coney Island Museumhosts an indoor rock and roll film series with classics like “Rock and Roll High School on July 9th and “Purple Rain on September 17th, while the first outdoor film series on the beach in Coney Island starts on July 11th with “Saturday Night Fever”.
We at Brooklyn Roads urge our readers to go out this summer and see a show at one of the boroughs growing number of music venues both large (Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn Bowl) and small (Jalopy and Southpaw, to name just a few) . As always we also encourage you to support local performers. Toward that end we present a special “Artists on the Horizon” edition of our newsletter, shining our spotlight on three diverse and talented women who all deserve a listen.