If you’ve got an appetite for local flavor on the Indiana State Fair entertainment calendar, you probably can get your fill beginning Friday at the fairgrounds in Indianapolis.
And many of the concerts are free.
Among the better-known acts will be Yacht Rock Revue, featuring Columbus natives Nick Niespodziani and Peter Olson. The group last performed in Columbus last year at the Columbus Regional Health Foundation Reverse Raffle.
The Atlanta-based soft rock ensemble will perform at 7:30 p.m. Aug. 10 in the Indiana Farmers Coliseum what it calls its Yacht Rock Revival Tour 2017 with special guests Robbie Dupree (“Steal Away”), Player’s Peter Beckett (“Baby Come Back”), Matthew Wilder (“Break My Stride”), and Elliot Lurie from Looking Glass (“Brandy, You’re a Fine Girl”).
Their teamwork with artists from the 1970s and 1980s includes a music cruise with Train, where Rock and Roll Hall of Famer John Oates joined them on stage to perform “She’s Gone,” with Niespodziani and Olson contributing major vocal help, in 2014. That youtube.com clip has generated more than 21,000 hits.
Plus, Bigfoot Yancey, a folk-rock-bluegrass band featuring Columbus resident and banjo and mandolin player Loran Bohall, will perform at 1:30 p.m. Aug. 19 as part of the Pepsi Indiana Music Festival also featuring The Why Store, The Easthills, and Against The Clocks on the Chevrolet Silverado Free Stage.
Several other scheduled acts are well known to Columbus-area audiences. For instance, Saturday’s 7:30 p.m. lineup that includes Hotel California with “A Salute to The Eagles” features The Gordon Bonham Blues Band, a favorite of several local JCB NeighborFEST concerts over the years. It also includes Terry Lee & the Rockaboogie Band, playing at today’s NeighborFEST downtown in front of The Commons, 301 Washington St.
Other concerts include George Thorogood and the Destroyers at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Brett Michaels at 7:30 p.m. Monday, and Patti LaBelle Aug. 17, all on the Chevrolet Silverado Free Stage.
Information: indianastatefair.com/state-fair/.
