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Starting May 23… the Library Plaza Rocks

Because summer is here and the time is right

By Greg Jackson

Fort Wayne Reader

2015-05-18

I remember when I was a kid my older brothers would travel from Garrett to watch the Sunday concerts at Freimann Square and I always wished they would take me with them, but I was just “that kid brother,” and 10 years younger to boot, which made me more a bother than a brother.

By the time I was “old enough,” the free Sunday concerts had gone the way of the TRF raft race.

Many years later, Rock the Plaza finally revived free music downtown in the summertime. And I just cannot say this enough — this is truly the best thing to happen to our local music scene in a long long time.

In my family, the beginning of the Rock the Plaza series signals the true beginning of summer. Finally, it’s that time of year again when I come out of the funk of winter and the breeze blows off the stink of all that time inside.

My wife and I have been involved and immersed in the music scene since we met 20 years ago. In fact, the first time we met, 20 years ago, was at a gig. Now, with two small daughters, it’s harder than ever to get out to see bands play. The cost of a baby sitter, as well as the sleep factor (sleep these days is much more a commodity than it ever used to be for us)… well, we don’t make it out to see bands as much — or as late — as we used to.

Rock the Plaza has solved this issue and made it a memory for at least a few months of the summer by letting us take our kids to the plaza, showing them the importance of live music, and having a free night out for the family.

So, for the past few years, or since Rock the Plaza started 5 or 6 years ago, we started making it a bike ride to the plaza and watching music (me playing drums at times) and then a ride home. It has been a wonderful way to celebrate summer for our household. This year will be a little different, as we moved out of the downtown area, so we will be hauling bikes to a place where we can still ride to the plaza and back before loading up the bikes and going home.

I say all this to let you know that for our family, live music on the plaza has been one of Downtown Fort Wayne’s best ideas.

BeatleFest — May 23

Starting back a year or so ago, we noticed that Beatlefest has become the “kick-off” event for summer, when the weather reaches the “no return” point and goes from “it’s northern Indiana; it may snow tomorrow!” to “summer is here — let’s shine up the bikes and pump up the tires!”

As you probably guessed, Beatlefest features a host of great bands playing tribute to the Beatles. And there are a host of fantastic bands on the line-up this year. If you know the local music scene at all you are familiar with both Kill the Rabbit and Greatful Groove.

The Beatles 64 Lab Band is a group of musicians from Sweetwater Academy; having worked there for a decade back in the day I can tell you they will be something special to listen to, since Sweetwater always has an excellent pool of talent. Soft N Heavy is a group of young guys who played Beatlefest and Zepfest last year and have some stuff on youtube. All in all it will be a fantastic evening of Beatles music and being outside without a parka or sock hat.

Kill the Rabbit
Greatful Groove
Beatles 64 Lab Band
Soft N Heavy

Rock the Plaza

Coming up on May 30th is the offical kick-off of Rock the Plaza at the Downtown Library Plaza.

I just can’t stress enough how Rock the Plaza has been such a great way of making summer a more fun way to spend time downtown. I would like to give a shout out to the guys from XKE (former Rock104 and will always be that for me) and Kyle Haller for all the hard work they do behind the scenes to put this show on each week of the summer. Also, Javier Bayouth and John Barrett doing the sound work makes it all the sweeter.

This summer starts on May 30th with a line-up of…
Walkin’ Papers
Tim Harrington Band
Orange Opera
Freak Brothers

The week after that the show consists of…
The B-45’s
Sunny Taylor Band
Isaiah’s Vision

All great bands and will make for an explosive start to the summer fun in Downtown Ft. Wayne. Personally I have worked with Kevin Hambrick from Orange Opera while at Sweetwater and he is truly genius when it comes to his musical creativity. This is a show you shouldn’t miss especially for free at the Library Plaza. And I have played with the Freak Brothers many years ago; those guys are some of the best musicians in town and probably the coolest bunch of guys I have ever met. If you can listen to these guys play and not shake your butt, you have something wrong with you. Sunny Taylor is just awesome and she has been around this town working hard for so long, and has done a lot of great things for our local music scene. As for the other bands that I haven’t seen yet I am excited to see what they have to offer and you can bet my family and I will be in attendance to soak it all in.

Rock the Plaza runs from May 30th straight through to til Labor Day and will feature all genres of music and all types of bands throughout the summer.

So, Saturday night May 23rd you should drop what you’re doing and get your butt to Beatlefest and celebrate the fact that it isn’t gonna snow next week, and we are just starting the best time of year. Celebrate that for the foreseeable future we have good weather and new beginnings and color in our lives again. Celebrate that the people behind the scenes are working hard so we can go downtown and not only get a FREE concert every Saturday night, but can enjoy live music without being in a bar and hiring baby sitters.