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If you’re looking for a different kind of a festival this coming weekend think about Turtle’s 1st Annual Street Festival as an alternative to The Peace Fest, The Taste of Randolph Street or the Wrigleyville Block Party.
Here is some info on Turtle’s 1st Annual Street Festival:
WHEN: Saturday June 18th
WHAT: Come stop by for a drink or something off the grill.
Bag tournament @ 3:00 with cash prizes. Sign up is earlier that day. Teams will be picked right before the tournament.
Live music @ 5:00. Pig and lamb roast, too.
WHERE: In the Bridgeport neighborhood
Can’t beat a great day outside in the summertime!!!!!!! This is a fun event for people of all ages!
Here is a review of the Do-Divison Fest by our contributing writer Taina Collazo:
Chi-city is heating up just in time for some of the city’s favorite fests. This weekend was all abuzz with bands, booze, and BBQ, as seen at the annual Do-Division Street Fest & Sidewalk Sale.
With the summer sun making its re-appearance on Chicago’s sidewalks, this summer’s fashion trends, for better or for worse, found their way into the warm spotlight. I, however, wasn’t looking for the latest looks adorned on my fellow city dwellers. Nope…my eyes were looking for fresh fashion inspirations in the vendors’ booths. I am happy to report that I was very pleased with what I found.
There were the usual suspects present – jewelry vendors, city services like car sharing and apartments searches, restaurants and food vendors, amongst others. What caught my eye, however, were the cause-based vendors. The reminder that we are all connected within our community and beyond our borders was a welcomed thought as I enjoyed my beverage of choice and listened to the featured bands spread out over a couple stages.
Featured Vendors:
i2we – This Chicago based company has one goal: To give “legally immigrated women in the Chicagoland area an employment opportunity that utilizes her sewing and crafting skills.” Items featured in this tent consisted of hand-sewn bags, backpacks, and clutch-like bags. They were all unique designs and all supporting some of Chicagoland’s newest residences. You can find their goods and support fellow Chicagoans by visiting their showroom featured on Etsy at www.i2we.etsy.com.
Alidade – A “made in Chicago” company that tailors their designs to the practical, fashion forward, eco-conscious woman. Alidade’s simple designs make their clothes easy to dress up or dress down allowing for versatility from day to night without the need for an outfit change. Alidade takes it one step further with their re-purposed designs. Textile scraps work their way back to the showrooms’ mannequins and into closets all over the city. See some of their designs at www.alidadeapparel.com.
Malia Designs – This organization brings their goods from borders far beyond Lakeshore Drive to the windy city in efforts to support women in developing countries along with supporting non-profit organizations, both locally and abroad. Featured in the tent were some unique accessories. The change purses, clutches, and wallets particularly caught my eye and drew me in. If you are looking for something unique to accent your fashion life, Malia Design may have something that meets your inner fashionista’s desires while supporting women working to provide for their families and their futures. An extra feature to Malia Designs’ cause is its support of eradicating human trafficking and providing aid to this heinous crime’s victims. See the company’s goods and learn more about Malia Designs at www.maliadesigns.com.
Do Division Fest definitely did deliver. I hope to see more local businesses present at other fests around the city this summer telling their unique stories and giving Chicagoans the opportunity to impact lives within our great city and beyond. Be sure to check out the above businesses’ websites for more information and updates.
If the lines into the Stage 773 theatre were any measure of the show about to begin, the 10th Annual Chicago Comedy Festival would be worth the wait. And it was.
The festival opened Thursday, Jan. 6 and ran through Sunday, and will continue on the next weekend as well. The shows I attended were on Saturday evening, Space Chocolate at 6 p.m. and The Cool Table at 7 p.m. These were just two of the 18 shows playing that evening. Each night there are multiple shows going on at once as Stage 773 houses three diffrent stages. There are different starting times every evening, i.e. 8p.m. Thursday, 7p.m. Friday, but each show runs one hour and starts on the hour. It continues this way until the last show gets out at midnight. The three stages inside Stage 773 allow shows to go on simultaneously, allowing patrons to view all the acts without ever leaving the building.
I arrived a few minutes before the first show to make sure I got a good seat. As I entered the venue, I was pleasently surprised. The box office was located in to the right of the entrance, far enough away to allow the lines to get long without blocking the doors. The lobby was spacious, large enough to leave room for a full service bar. It did get crowded as the evening went on, but those running the show clearly had anticipated large crowds and directred traffic well.
Stage 773 was also incredibly easy to get to. Whether one is traveling by train, bus, car or walking, it was easy to locate and get into. It was just a few blocks down Belmont also allowing for a wide selection of restaurants and bars for those looking to make it a full evening. There is even a 4 a.m. bar, Big City Tap, close by for those who stay for all the shows. Stage 773 is also right down the street from the Bailiwick Theatre, which was redone over the last year.
Before going in to watch Space Chocolate perform, I go to see Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival management team at work. As it got crowded they did a great job of keeping lines moving and getting people in and out of the theatres quickly. For new comers things were clearly marked like where to go if one was paying for cash and how to obtain a wrist band for the bar. I especially enjoyed the Master of Ceremonies, as I liked to call him. In the left hand corner of the lobby there was a deck built and a man sat in this balcony before each show. Once the shows began he blew his horn and announced the theatre’s opening. It built excitement as everyone scurried to get a seat.
Space Chocolate performed in the North theatre at 6p.m. The group was made up of two men and featured another troupe, Man On the Ledge. Space Chocolate started out with a sketch about a woman getting stood up at a Swedish restaurant. The waiter had a Swedish accent and all the food had “funny” Swedish names. At the end of the sketch when the woman asked the waiter to join him, he turns out to be American. The sketches continued to be of this sort of caliber. The humor was predictable and stale. Often they went for the cheap laugh by making racial jokes or using physical comedy. Both men had stage presence and had clearly performed before, but they lacked comedic timing. Also they didn’t work well as a team. One man clearly was a stage hog, something I find to be extremely annoying. Man On A Ledge, however, brightened up the show a bit. While they weren’t leaving me in tears, they did have good comedic timing. They worked well together as a group and seemed to know each group members strengths well. Their sketches also had a bit more creativity and they used more socially relevant material. I especially enjoyed one in which the two girls in the group of six were radio DJ’s at a jazz station. All in all the performance left me a little weary about the rest of the evening.
Then The Cool Table happened.
The Cool Table began at 7p.m. in the west theatre. Within the first minute I was crying from laughter. Sketch after sketch they never fell flat. Their vocal inflections, comedic timing and physicality were flawless, creating a show where only mere seconds went by before the crowd was laughing again. Their humor was a nice mix of silly and adult. They incorporated buzzworthy medium, like Glee, into their writing, but also used classic topics, like cross-dressing, with new twists. For example, their performance included a the classic break up sketch, where the break up-er says “It’s not you, it’s everything about you.”, only this time the break up happened between male friends. Just one example of how they used the buzzworthy “bromance” in conjunction with the classic break up theme. The shining star of the evening, however, were the two ladies. They were the voice over to a mediation tape in which they took the audience on a journey throughout the body as nomads, rapped about lady parts and cereal and one stole the show when she sang about her cross-dressing. I laughed so hard, I cried.
The festival was clearly a hit, not just based on my opinion but based on the sheer number of people that came out to see the show. Brian Posen, the creator of the festival, has done a great job organizing the event, expanding the number of groups and gaining community support. It shows in the number of returning guests and through the performers, as both groups gave a shot out to him at the end of their shows. I urge everyone and anyone who has a couple extra bucks and enjoys shows like It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia or SNL then the Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival will deliver. I know I will be going back.
Friday and Saturday lineups at the North Coast Music Festival were great and a huge number of people came out to see the likes of Chemical Brothers, De La Soul, Paul Van Dyk and Moby among others. Those that came out to see those acts didn’t regret it all and spoke highly of all the music performances.
I was lucky enough to be at the festival on Sunday night and catch the performances by Chicago’s own Lupe Fiasco, followed by the duo of Nas and Damian Marley.
Going into this festival I knew it would be large in size (location: Union Park, West Side) , as well as the following due to the names appearing at the festival. The fact that it was the last big festival of the summer made the event even bigger, since people wanted to use that last weekend for something useful.
Arriving at the festival, the first thing that struck me was the impossible task of finding a parking spot somewhere close to the actual fest. I expected parking to be difficult because of the musical acts appearing that night but I didn’t anticipate parking a “mile” away from Union Park.
Regardless, once inside the festival the whole atmosphere reminded me a bit of Lollapalooza in the way everything was set up. Stages were not all that far from one another but just the right distance apart, as to not interfere with each others performances. The food vendors were at a safe distance from the actual stages, so if one wanted a hot dog or a beer you were most likely going to lose your spot in front of the stage.
I arrived just in time to catch the whole performance by Lupe Fiasco and that was certainly a major pick-me-up for the entire crowd. Fiasco definitely puts on a show and the entire crowd appreciated his energetic display, along with his hit songs “Kick, Push” and “Superstar.” I was there with my girlfriend and while I enjoy listening to Lupe Fiasco, she likes him more and she truly enjoyed the performance from start to finish.
After Lupe concluded his impressive performance, it was time for Nas & Damian Marley to entertain the crowds. I was looking for this performance more so than Lupe Fiasco, mainly because I am slightly older than majority of the crowd and I listened to Nas way back in the day. At this point and time it was around 8:30 and the dark of the night had completely set over Union Park.
Nas & Damian Marley did not disappoint. They started the show with Nas’ classic single “If I ruled the world” featuring Lauryn Hill, with Damian being kind enough and subbing in for the multiple Grammy Award winning singer. Starting off with that song was an absolute hit as the entire crowd got into it and sang along. From that point on the two alternated songs and helped out one another as they performed for a good hour and a half.
Their performance was truly amazing and the entire crowd sang along and held up lighters to all the classic Damian Marley songs. The duo was most definitely the right choice for the final performance of the festival, a festival that certainly looked like a complete success after it is all said and done.
The only downside to the event was the lines for the beer tickets as they easily exceeded 30-40 yards. The food lines were way shorter and I was impressed with the variety that they had to offer for an outdoor music festival. Sure one could get the usual burgers, hot dogs and pizza but the event also offered salads, kebobs and Thai food…something not always seen at a music fest.
Overall, the festival pleasantly surprised me in the way it was organized, as well the numerous culinary options available to the crowd. The music was well worth going to the fest and whether you liked techno, rap, reggae or even alternative, there was something there for everyone. This was a great festival for anyone in the mood for good music and a great way to say goodbye (unfortunately) to the summer, as we “welcome” fall/winter to Chicago yet again.
