Adams Ave. Street Fair Returns This Weekend

The Styletones
The Styletones

The Adams Avenue Street Fair is back. It’s free and it’s back.

Seven stages of music, a couple of beer gardens, carnival rides, and a healthy dose of cholesterol will dominate a portion of Adams Avenue from 32nd St. to 35th St. The area will most certainly be crowded by lovers of good things from September 28-29.

Here is who we’re looking forward to seeing this weekend, and it may be stating the obvious, but this represents a very small portion of the wide musical range seen in the 90 performing acts. If jazz, blues, and acoustic is your thing, hopefully these crass, unrefined picks won’t dissuade you from attending.

The Creepy Creeps: These guys played a few weeks ago at Soda Bar (which scored itself quite the lineup during the San Diego Music Thing), and the twisted, horror-loving 17-year-old inside all those attending fell in love with the show. Putting a comically dark, aggressive spin on psychobilly, The Creepy Creeps appeared on stage adorned with masks you might find in a B-list horror movie and surrounded by go-go dancers, who barely found a spot to stand in Soda Bar. Needless to say it was a bit cree—um, spooky, and unsettling. Overall, they put on a wildly entertaining show, even going so far as to point out individuals in the crowd and demand that they quit standing there staring and dance.

Wild Belle: Wild Belle prove that not all reggae music is about good vibes or making getting high with a girl romantic. But seriously, Wild Belle’s melancholy reggae is strangely accessible. Frontwoman Natalie Bergman’s clear, nostalgic lyrics over a slow, seductive beat are very far from the beaten path in San Diego’s music wildlife park. Her new release, Isles, shows a lot of range both instrumentally and lyrically.

The Styletones: It doesn’t matter if you’ve never heard a Styletones song in your life — you’ll still have a great time at their show. Their soulful, big-band funk is universal. They announced last week that longtime guitarist Deron Grant was leaving the band due to a worsening kidney disease, but I’m glad to hear that they’re pushing on. The Bar Pink regulars are local favorites in San Diego, and they serve up the heartiest portions of funk in town.

Blackout Party: Despite their country twang — a quality usually deserving of immediate dismissal — Blackout Party is the real deal. Their down-home, roots-rock sound sets all at ease, and they know how to put on a great show. This is most likely a good opportunity to check out some of their new material before they head to Nashville, TN to record their new album, according to CityBeat. Oh, and in case it’s a deciding factor for you, it’s probably worth mentioning that they got nominated for Best Rock Band at the San Diego Music Awards.

Barbarian: Barbarian have released two thoroughly impressive EPs this year, and it’ll be interesting to see what they do with the material live. They have kind of a nightmarishly dreamy take on surf rock, like if The Growlers took too much NyQuil. They too are recording an album this year, which may be a sign they’re in some kind of delirious, music-writing frenzy.

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