The Peconic Riverfront will be the backdrop for an outdoor blues festival for the first time in more than a decade next month when Riverhead Townscape presents “Blues by the River” Sept. 9.
Kerry Kearney and the Kings of Psychedelta will headline the six-hour event at the Riverhead Town Square, featuring a line-up that includes Lex Gray and the Urban Pioneers, Jack Licitra and the South Bay Soul, Gene Casey and the Lone sharks and Kane Daily and the Roadhouse Dawgs.
Tickets, priced at $30 for the first 10 days and $35 after that while supplies last, will go on sale at midnight tonight, Riverhead Townscape President Jim Warner said.
The event will feature a “Blues Village,” where vendors will offer food and snacks, local craft brews and ciders, and event merchandise.
Gates will open at 10:30 a.m. The event takes place from noon to 6 p.m. Rain date is Sept. 10. For more information visit the event website.
The Riverhead Blues Festival was one of the town’s biggest outdoor music festivals, drawing tens of thousands of fans to the riverfront for a weekend of blues, food and drink, and even fireworks. It was first staged by the Riverhead Business Improvement District in 1999. The Council for the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall took over production and management of the event in 2006. The festival was last produced in 2012. The Vail-Leavitt reprised the event as an indoor concert series at the historic theater over three weekends in the fall of 2016.
“People are always talking about the blues festival,” downtown salon owner Lisa Pickersgill said in an interview yesterday. “So I said, OK we’re going to do this.”
Pickersgill said she went to the Riverhead Chamber and the Riverhead BID boards and asked if the organizations could get involved. (Pickersgill is a member of the chamber board.) “They have so many things going on,” she said. “They couldn’t take on another event this summer.”
A member of townscape, Pickersgill said she then approached Warner. “He thought it was a great idea,” she said.
The idea quickly blossomed, Warner said.
The Riverhead Town Board approved a special event permit for the blues festival at its Aug. 1 meeting.
Riverhead resident and longtime Riverhead Blues Festival volunteer Phil Gatz put Warner in touch with Kearney and the musician quickly agreed to not only headline the event but also to put together the line-up, Warner said.
The whole thing came together rapidly, Warner said.
Kearney, a renowned blues slide guitarist and a member of the New York Blues Hall of Fame, put together a great afternoon of blues music, Warner said.
“He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s our music director,” Warner joked.
The festival will raise money for Riverhead Townscape, an all-volunteer, tax-exempt nonprofit founded in 1975 ahead of the American Bicentennial to advance beautification and community pride. The organizations provides planters and hanging baskets downtown, sponsors a summer concert series, and hosts the Riverhead Country Fair.
Townscape held its first concert in the new town square last week and has a magic show planned for this Thursday and a Beatles tribute band concert coming up on Aug. 17. All three events in the “summer stage” series are free to attend.
Editor’s note: The link on the event website for ticket sales that appeared in an earlier version of this article was incorrect and has been fixed.
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