SAT 3/20: BlastFest 3

11am to 11pm
BlastFest 3
at YMCA Theater, 820 Mass Ave, Cambridge (Central Sq)
$5 - $10 (sliding scale) / All Ages

Feat: Apollo Sunshine, Tulsa, Boy Without God, Girlfriends, Concord Ballet Orchestra Players, Shai Erlichman, The Needy Visions, The Woodrow Wilsons, Ambitious Tugboat, James Lindsey, Wolf Woolf, Avi Jacob, The Meadowlarks, Duck That, The French Cops, Rene, Manners, Greg Mullen, The Great Valley, Debbie & The Bullets, Casey Rocheteau , Turtle Ambulance, more

Host: Simone Beaubien

Oh, yeah! Tomorrow's forecast calls for a beautiful first (official) day of Spring. I understand if you want to be outside, however there is indoor fun to be had tomorrow (listed in a bit). This is the first event of the day -- and the longest.

I predict a day of cool, positive, mega-fun as the Whitehaus folks take their JP house-party blueprint way across the Charles, and they've juiced it to monstrous proportions for the third year in a row. It keeps on getting bigger and better!

It's difficult to imagine that many people can handle 12 hours of this creative cornucopia of folk, rock, spoken-word, experimental music, and some stuff that seeps around these descriptors. I imagine it could go by fast at about 20 minutes per artist.

I'm not sure if the schedule I saw is accurate. Some of the approximate times that would be more appealing to me: 1-ish (Girlfriends, Boy Without God); 3-ish (Apollo Sunshine, Shai Erlichman); and 9-ish (Tulsa, Rene, Needy Visions).

For the vinyl-lovers, "The Whitehaus Family Record Family Record" will be available at the show for $10 too. In what's described as "first ever vinyl mix tape", 26 tracks on limited-edition wax represent about two dozen bands that have played at their place.

The organizers of the Boston Zine Fair had an eviction and a recent reopening to handle, so this year's event has been grafted to BlastFest in a limited form. I read that about 20 "zinesters, comics artists, assorted DIY media peddlers" will be set up until 7pm or so.

It's a "sliding scale", so pay what you can. If you're going to be there most of the day, I think $10 is pretty damn cheap! If you're only stopping by for a little while to check it out, don't feel bad for giving $5. I expect that people will be allowed to leave and return.

If all this wasn't enough, you might even get a free PB&J sandwich! Is there a better way to celebrate the equinox?

Check out some photos from last year, and you get the idea of good vibes radiating in the room.