From a star-studded country music festival to Brian Copeland and free tunes and flicks in Redwood City, there is a lot to see and do in the Bay Area this weekend and beyond. Here is a partial roundup.
Country Summer Music Fest returns
Organizers have pulled together an impressive cast of headliners for the 2024 Country Summer Music Festival.
Topping the bill for the three-day event, set for June 14-16 at the Sonoma County Fair and Event Center in Santa Rosa, are Old Dominion, Little Big Town and Jordan Davis.
The Day 1 headliner Old Dominion got off to a quick start in the business with its 2015 platinum-certified debut, “Meat and Candy,” which featured the smash hits “Break Up with Him,” “Snapback” and “Song for Another Time.” The band’s most recent full-length outing is 2023’s “Memory Lane.”
Little Big Town, the marquee attraction for Day 2, is known for such top 10 hits as “Pontoon,” “Better Man,” “Boondocks,” “Bring it On Home” and “Little White Church.” The vocal act has won several awards, including four Grammys.
Jordan Davis released his debut full-length, “Home State,” in 2018 and it included the popular singles “Take It from Me,” “Singles You Up” and “Slow Dance in a Parking Lot.” This Day 3 headliner delivered his second album, “Bluebird Days,” in 2023.
Other well-known acts on the bill include Jo Dee Messina, Brett Young and Walker Hayes.
Details: 3:34-10:35 p.m. June 14, noon-10:35 p.m. June 15, noon-8:55 p.m. June 15; 1350 Bennett Valley Road, Santa Rosa; three-day passes start at $215 single-day passes begin at $89; camping available; countrysummer.com.
— Jim Harrington, Staff
Classical Picks: Kanneh-Mason, BFX, “Partenope”
Symphonic works, early music, and opera offer a wide range of choices on this week’s classical music calendar. Here are the details on three special events.
At the Symphony:Award-winning British cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason headlines this week’s San Francisco Symphony program. He’ll join music director Esa-Pekka Salonen and the orchestra in Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1. Sofia Gubaidulina’s “Fairy Tale Poem” and Tchaikovsky’s “Francesca da Rimini” complete the program.
Details:7:30 p.m. June 13-15; Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco; $25-$139; sfsymphony.org.
BFX dazzles:The Berkeley Festival and Exhibition returned earlier this month with dozens of events on its calendar. Presented by the San Francisco Early Music Society, there’s one more weekend to go, with performances, special events, and a free three-day Exhibition and Marketplace open Thursday through Saturday.
Details: Performances through June 16 at various Berkeley locations; $30-$50; berkeleyfestival.org.
“Partenope”:Now that its summer productions of “The Magic Flute” and “Innocence” are up and running, San Francisco Opera is ready to unveil the pleasures of “Partenope.” Expect romantic complications and gender confusion in Handel’s larky opera, which features the great husband-and-wife duo of Alek Shrader as Emilio and Daniela Mack as Rosmira.
Details: June 15-28; War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco; $32-$414; sfopera.com.
— Georgia Rowe, Correspondent
Copeland brings ‘Black Man’ to San Jose
With a well-received production of Lynn Nottage’s “Clyde’s” closing last weekend, City Lights Theater in San Jose on Saturday is opening its stage to an iconic Bay Area show.
Bay Area performer Brian Copeland’s solo show “Not a Genuine Black,” which manages to be hilarious and heartbreaking at the same time, comes to the City Lights as part of the show’s 20th anniversary.
“Not a Genuine Black Man” is the best known of Copeland’s autobiographical solo shows and said to be longest-running solo stage show in Bay Area history. It recounts with pain and humor Copeland’s growing up in San Leandro, a city described by the National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing in 1972 as” a racist bastion of white supremacy.”
On Sunday, the theater features a concert by father/daughter duo Cory “Dr. Noize” Cullinan and Riley Max
Copeland: Brian Copeland, 7 p.m. Saturday; Cullinan and Max, 7 p.m. Sunday; $22-$37 each; cltc.org.
— Randy McMullen, Staff
Free fun in Redwood City
Redwood City’s Courthouse Square hosts a good deal of events and gatherings throughout the year, but during the summer months, the place gets really busy. Through late August, the city hosts a variety of free events and performances, some on a weekly basis. On Thursday nights, you can catch Movies on the Square. On most weeks, there’s a double feature with either a kid-friendly screening at 6 p.m. or a short indie film presented by BraveMaker Independent Film Festival at 8, followed by a mainstream feature film at 8:30 p.m. This weekend features a special screening of Bay Area filmmaker Jesse Kuba’s feature film “The Moon is in Aquarius,” part of the city’s Juneteenth celebration. The film follows two people who meet at a party and spend a special fun- and romance-filled night in San Francisco. Other films screening during the summer include “Frozen II” and “Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part I” (June 20); A BraveMaker short film and “Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3” (June 27); “Elemental” and “National Treasure” (July 18) and many more.
On Fridays through Aug. 30, the city hosts Music on the Square from 6-8 p.m., featuring such acts as Petty Theft (a Tom Petty tribute band) this Friday, R&B/soul band Patton Lethea (June 21), Latin jazz outfit Orquesta Dharma (June 28), and Journey tribute band Faithfully Live (July 5), and more. This Friday also features Art of the Square from 5-8:30 p.m., featuring works by scores of artists in a variety of mediums, which you can enjoy while catching classic rock tunes from Petty Theft. It’s a fun, often family-friendly scene and all the entertainment is free. And there is plenty to eat and drink on the site.
Details: More information and performance dates are at www.redwoodcity.org/residents/redwood-city-events.
— Bay City News Foundation
Marking a momentous holiday
Celebrations of Juneteenth – recognized as the day, June 19, 1869 that the final vestiges of slavery were abolished – are taking place all over the Bay Area. One of the biggest events will be offered this Sunday in Berkeley with a star-studded cast of performers. Running 11 a.m.-7 a.m. at 3529 Adeline St., Berkeley Juneteenth Festival will be headlined by the fabulous Bay Area jazz/blues singer Faye Carol – aka, The Dynamic Miss Faye Carol – who was born in Mississippi but moved to Pittsburg at an early age and quickly began wowing folks with her singing in church. Since the 1960s, Carol has been an indelible part of the Bay Area and national jazz/blues scene and if her current schedule is any indication, she has no plans to slow down anytime soon.
Also on the Berkeley Juneteenth lineup are Zydeco accordionist extraordinaire Andre Thierry; singer Dennie Denise Robinson, aka Niecey LivingSingle; veteran blues/jazz singer and guitarist Alvon Johnson, a one-time member of the Coasters; and the roots-reggae band Kava Jah and the Remedy. There will also be a second stage for kids-oriented entertainers as well as a Kid/STEM zone offering rock-wall climbing, skating, art activities, dancing, storytelling, face painting and other activities. And a variety of vendors will offer food and drink, merchandise and health and community information.
A full roundup of Juneteenth shows is here
Details: Admission is free. More information is at berkeleyjuneteenth.org.
— Bay City News Foundation
Now playing: Jazz with webbed feet
Any time you see a band with a name like GoGo Penguin waddling around, you’re going to take notice. Maybe that was what this Manchester, England, trio had in mind from the start, but after earning critical acclaim for more than a decade, we can forget about any novelty aspect being in play here. These guys are legit, even if maybe their sound – a unique blend of rock, jazz, nu-jazz, electronica and classical music – is not for everyone. The trio started to gain serious traction when its sophom*ore release, “v.20,” was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize, England’s version of the Grammy. The band was part of the vaunted Blue Note label’s stable of jazz acts for several years before it signed with the more experimental-minded label XXIV Records in 2021. With two releases dropped in the past two years – 2023’s “Everything is Going to Be OK” and this year’s “From the North” – GoGo Penguin lands at the SFJAZZ Center in San Francisco this weekend for a pair of shows, 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Tickets are $25-$75. Also at SFJAZZ this weekend are rising-star Cameroonian singer Ekep Nkwelle (7 and 8:30 p.m. Friday; $25) and trumpeter Jumaane Smith, a protege of Wynton Marsalis known for his work with Michael Buble (7 and 8:30 p.m. Saturday; $30).
Details: Information and tickets for all shows are at www.sfjazz.org
— Bay City News Foundation
