Adams Avenue Street Fair, featuring Bardo, Chris Duarte Group, Sue Palmer & Her Motel Swing Orchestra, Wild Wild Wets, Masta Ace, Los Fabulocos, Euphoria Brass Band, Fred Heath & The Slidewinders, and dozens more<\/p>\n
The numbers add up very well for this weekend\u2019s 44th annual Adams Avenue Street Fair.<\/p>\n
It will feature 75 bands and solo artists performing on six stages along a 10-block stretch of Adams Avenue in Normal Heights. The most notable number, though, is zero, which is the unbeatable price of admission for almost all of this entirely free music marathon (beer garden admission being the lone exception).<\/p>\n
With a lineup that features a relatively broad array of performers and genres, the fair should offer something that appeals to most listeners. Options range from Chicano Batman front man Bardo, blues-rocking guitarist Chris Duarte and San Diego boogie-woogie piano queen Sue Palmer & Her Motel Swing Orchestra to the roots-rocking East L.A. band Los Fabulocos, and such homegrown San Diego favorites as Sara Petite, Wild Wild Wets, Euphoria Brass Band, Boostive, Grampadrew, miniaturized, Gayle Skidmore, Buzz Campbell and Rey Wolf.<\/p>\n
The lineup also features what is being billed as the farewell performance by San Diego\u2019s 25-year-old Rookie Card, a band whose more overtly baseball-happy songs include \u201cAll I Want Is Padres Baseball,\u201d \u201c7th Track Stretch\u201d and \u201cThe Murph.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rookie Card is led by Adam Gimbel, who has also masterminded the faux senior citizen Weezer tribute band Geezer, Cover Me Badd, Blasphemous Guitars and Rabbi Gimbel\u2019s Chanukahtime Revue\/The Jews Explosion. For good measure, Gimbel also has led Wookie Card, a \u201cStar Wars\u201d attired Rookie Card offshoot group.<\/p>\n
Will Gimbel and Rookie Card trot out such favorites as \u201cYour Life Is A Joke,\u201d \u201cHell Toupee,\u201d \u201cEscalator To Heaven,\u201d \u201cMazzy Starship\u201d and the leap-year-championing \u201c2\/29\u201d for their 11:30 a.m. Saturday farewell show on the Casbah Stage at the Adams Avenue Street Fair? Will they perform songs from their farewell album, \u201cUs and Them,\u201d which features the Adams Avenue-inspired song \u201cMy Avenue?<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s hoping.<\/p>\n
10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 19, and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 20. On six stages on a 10-block stretch of Adams Avenue, between Bancroft Steet and 38th Street. Free, except for the three 21-andup beer gardens, which cost $21. (619) 282-7329 or adamsavenuebusiness.com\/adams-avenue-street-fair\/<\/a><\/p>\n Mike Keneally & Beer For Dolphins, with Travis Larson<\/p>\n Even for someone with an almost nonstop work schedule, guitar and keyboard wizard Mike Keneally has been unusually busy of late.<\/p>\n He spent a good chunk of June in Geneva, where he was the guest soloist in an elaborate, multi-performance Swiss orchestral production of the late Frank Zappa\u2019s \u201c200 Motels.\u201d Keneally, who was a key member of former San Diegan Zappa\u2019s final touring band in the 1980s, then hosted three Zappa-related events in July at the nearby Montreux Jazz Festival before returning to the U.S. for a tour with the new jazz-fusion band P f f T.\n<\/p>\n In August, Keneally reunited with several other former Zappa alums for four Los Angeles shows as Banned From Utopia. The same group will do a nine-country tour of Europe this fall.<\/p>\n But before he departs for the opening date in Prague, former San Diegan Keneally is doing a seven-date California tour with Beer For Dolphins, a band he has led off and on for several decades.<\/p>\n Keneally counts XTC leader Andy Partridge and guitar stars Joe Satriani and Steve Vai among his most illustrious collaborators and admirers. With Beer For Dolphins, he is able to follow his muse anywhere and everywhere. For fans of wildly adventurous rock and virtuoso musicianship, his Beer gig here Saturday should be a heady affair. And he\u2019ll be back Nov. 14 at the same San Marcos venue for a gig with P f f T.<\/p>\n 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 19. The Bornemann Theater, TERI Campus of Life, 555 Deer Springs Road, San Marcos. $25-$45. humanitix.com\/mikek-beer-for-dolphins<\/a><\/p>\n Brandi Carlile, with CMAT<\/p>\n As memorable as Brandi Carlile\u2019s collaborations with Joni Mitchell, Elton John, Maren Morris and Justin Vernon have been, it is on her own that she shines brightest \u2014 thanks to her luminous voice, deeply felt songs and steadfast conviction that music is invaluable in helping to affect positive change.<\/p>\n Charismatic Irish country-pop dynamo CMAT, who will open the show, is an equally committed force for powerful music and female empowerment. Their pairing will likely one one of the bet double bills of the year here.<\/p>\n 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 22. The Shell, 222 Marina Park Way, downtown. $115.95-$622.75 (Platinum VIP package). ticketmaster.com<\/a><\/p>\n Vieux Farka Toure, with Gitkin<\/p>\n Hailed as \u201cthe Hendrix of the Sahara,\u201d Malian guitar star Vieux Farka Toure plays with equal fire and finesse.<\/p>\n His simultaneously earthy and exotic music illustrates that West African kora music and American Delta blues are indelibly connected. He is continuing to salute and extend the traditions that his father, the late Ali Farka Toure, brought to international audiences several decades ago, albeit with a psychedelic tinge his esteemed father likely never imagined possible.<\/p>\n