FortWayneMusic.com

I'm sending this to both papers:

Open Letter to the Three Rivers Festival Board and Committee:

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen:

Just when I thought the Three Rivers Festival entertainment offering could not possibly be any less appealing than the last few years, you managed to outdo yourselves.

Herman’s Hermits, a fake Beatles band, and to top it all off, The Village People. Are you serious? Congratulations on locking up the ever-elusive, over 50, Caucasian demographic. What about the rest of the residents of Fort Wayne and Allen County. You know, those of us who are under 50, those who are of a minority racial group, those of us who enjoy much more current music?

One oldies act is probably more than sufficient for one 9-day festival, I imagine. You do realize there are several other genres of music, which are far more appealing to the large majority of the region, correct? Perhaps you could have chosen from the myriad of jazz, modern rock, alternative country, country, rock, rap, R&B, and Latin acts as well?

Several local music fans on fortwaynemusic.com and I put together a list of suggested artists, which I sent on to the Three Rivers Festival board, and was told it was received and reviewed. Not only did you not book any artists from that list, you ran in the complete opposite direction. This is the same group of music fans who recently packed the Deer Park Inn for a series of concerts, who fill Columbia Street West every Friday and Saturday evening, who will likely attend several of the other downtown musical festivals this summer, but I don’t imagine many of them will be spending any money at Three Rivers Festival this summer. I certainly won’t. With one very notable exception (Blues Traveler), for the past five years the quality and appeal of performers has gone steadily down hill. Surely, you can do better than that.

Sincerely,

Brad Jones
A local musician and music fan

AMEN.

Not to mention that I expect local bands would be less expensive to hire, too.

Add my name to that.

I'm sorry, but Kenny Wayne Shepherd was AWESOME! Collective Soul did a great job also.

Okay, how about I change that to, "with a couple of notable exceptions"

I'm in. Nice job Brad.

I added this url to the letter

Outstanding Letter! I agree with ALL of it.

Agreed! You nailed that one.

I'm sorry, but Kenny Wayne Shepherd was AWESOME! Collective Soul did a great job also

Ditto to this!!

Took a client from out of town to dinner at the Gas House
then to Collective Soul.

They went out of their way to comment how impressed
they were with the whole set up/concert/tent/etc.

Last year, sucked royally though.

the Village People, Wont be anywhere
near that,... not even with a hurl bucket...

I agree.

However, they did take my suggestion & represent local hip-hop, albeit on a Monday, all-ages night. More info. is included in the cover story in Whatzup this week, but the local line-up on July 10th is good, featuring a variety of (good) local hip-hop acts opening up for a suprise national "rap" act sponsored by 96.3 (which, I am guessing will be a crappy commercial act.... but I am really hoping that it won't be).

I got word that they were looking into a jam band of sorts....prehaps a Phish cover band? But never got back with the promoter.

Also, we are working with them to get a good representation of local and indie (aka insert the genre that you want to use for "good" music here) music into the fest as an affiliated event, so I encourage this letter to be sent ASAP, because it will only support the efforts we are making currently.

Oh, and I just want to say that I like the way DID is working with people that are already in the music "scene" and not above, around & over them.

Sent to both papers today. I will send it to the 3rf committee as well.

The TRF folks have also been very receptive to many of the suggestions I have had with regard to local bands, and the multi-cultural events, which if everyone confirms will be much more "multi" cultural this year.

I am very pleased they asked me to help with getting the local acts on board.

FYI: Here's a list of national acts who will be in the surrounding area during the week of TRF:

Pink
Toad the Wet Sprocket
O.A.R.
The Pharcyde
Cowboy Mouth
Cake
George Thorogood
Phil Lesh
Panic! At The Disco


Now, I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say that TRF could afford any of these acts for a headlining show. Additionally, these acts will be in the Chicago/Indianapolis area during the week of TRF, and therefore, more prone to do it since they'll be in the area. And the best we can do here is The Village People and Herman's Hermits. Have the TRF commitee even LOOKED at the demographic that attends the festival at nights? Rest assured, if you're playing at C-Street, Club Soda, or Mid-City Grill either of the nights that TVP or HH is playing, be prepared for record turn outs cause the people aren't going to stay at the Main Event Tent.