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diversions:
Beach Fest blasts
off in L.B.
Story and photos
by Tanya Dellaca
Summer On-line Forty-Niner
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Keith
Crossan steals the spotlight with his saxophone.
David
Heft jams an acoustic tune during the Beach Fest festivities;
Tyler
Smith strives to conquer the Climbing Wall, one of the
activities available to Beach Fest guests;
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The Beach Fest
celebrated its 20th anniversary at Shoreline Park in Long
Beach last Saturday and Sunday. Beach Charities unveiled a
completely new design for their annual event.
This year's Beach
Fest featured a "100% new format, that was well received"
said Melanie Jones of Beach Charities. "This year we
featured blues and barbeque on Saturday and the chili cook-off
and reggae on Sunday." Jones estimated Sunday's attendance
to be twice that of the previous day.
Although the Sunday's
turnout was higher, Cal State Long Beach graduate student
Michelle Davidson stated, "It's the blues the brought
me out."
Vic Sessions of
Burbank and his team Asleep at the Wheel took the title of
Grand Champion at Saturday's California State Championship
Barbeque Cook-off.
During the barbeque
a full day of blues performances were held on two stages.
Scheduled artists included Brian Young & The Blues Patrol,
2000 lbs of Blues, Candye Kane, Joe Louis Walker, Clarence
Gatemouth Brown and James Harman.
Headlining the
blues festival was Tommy Castro. "He's the hot one,"
said fan Jenny Carson. "He has a great voice and the
heart to play the blues."
Other events included
a climbing wall and HOPLAR's interactive art exhibit. For
five dollars, the climbing wall gave both children and adults
a chance test their rock climbing skills.
HOPLAR which stands
for Helping Other People Love All Races, provided canvas and
paint for guests to create a group art piece to be raffled
off at a later date. "We want to make people an interactive
part of the event," said Shahid Brown of HOPLAR Design
Company. "We do this for the people to give them something
hands-on."
Residential Carpenters
Union of Southern California, Local 2007's booth provided
free hot dogs and water to Beach Fest guests. "We come
out every year to promote unionism and training," said
Pete Gutierrez of Local 2007. "We also understand that
the events costs so we give free hot dogs to kids and families."
Band members, Dave
Heft and Matt Crown of Long Beach's Southern Discomfort, played
acoustic guitar and sang for onlookers at Dirty Queen Records
exhibition.
Sunday's reggae
music scheduled guests included Nobody Cares, Quinto Sol,
the Specials w/ Neville Staple, Common Sense, Lyons Den, Romy
Dee & Rhythm Doctor, Jump with Joey, Shinehead w/ Detour
Posse, Eek-A-Mouse and Wailing Souls.
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