Springing the Blues Festival

For someone that’s a native, I have a funny way of avoiding events until it’s a big anniversary. I did it with the 40^th anniversary of TPC. And now the 25^th anniversary of Springing the Blues. We had headed up to Blind Rabbit to grab a burger — thankfully before the crowd rush — and completely forgot the blues festival was going down.
Since we had already found a parking spot we decided to hang out for a bit and check out who was jamming out on stage. I don’t recall the name of the band, but they are frequent festival participants from Louisiana bringing their zydeco funk to the beaches of Jacksonville. The crowd was definitely enjoying it as their was much dancing in the aisles. And no knocks against the band — they were great — but after several songs it all starts to sound similar. At least to me.
I’ll definitely have to keep an eye on this one when it rolls around next year.

A co-​worker invited me to check out Jacksonville’s annual Blues festival at the beach. Attracting a very diverse cross section of the city’s population, thousands of people were casually dressed enjoying the bands on the main and side stages, shopping at the vendor tables and eating a variety of local and regional cuisine from the many food booths. Music and excitement filled the air amid the waves of palm trees and cigarette smoke. Like any event at the beach, definitely since it was a free event, parking was limited and traffic was heavy. But the sounds of the blues ironically kept the crowd happy and engaged — singing, dancing and laughing.