A fairly packed few days
Lincoln County Fair offers free fun in Newport
This line up of live music at this year’s Lincoln County Fair continues to focus on local talent.
The three-day event running from Thursday, july 4, through Saturday, July 6, in Newport, leads off each day at 10 am with Ronnie Jay Pirrello, a popular, blues-oriented South County singer-guitarist-harmonica player.
Hitting the stage on Thursday will be the unplugged guitar duo of Bruce Moore and the fair’s music coordinator Steve Mason. Popular singer-songwriter and loop artist Saundra Perrin and the hard-rocking Buzzkill band round out the day’s schedule.
Friday features the fair’s longest-running ongoing music act, Newport’s Thunder & Lightness World Beat Ensemble at 11:45 am, with high energy multicultural, traditional and indigenous rhythm by percussionist Chandler Davis on the hand-carved African, Latin and Polynesian drums and award-winning Native American flute player Terry Filer of the Osage Nation.
The group is dedicating the performance to the memory of Rodney Turner, popular Central Coast drummer, percussionist and dance band leader and a regular player with the ensemble for 14 years, who died suddenly of heart failure in April.
“Rodney called me looking for someone to drum with right after he moved to Lincoln County,” Davis said. “He sat in with Thunder & Lightness the very next day at our very first public performance at Cafe Mundo in 2010, played with us at all but a couple of our 13 or 14 county fair performances, and brought his knowledge of traditional forms, infectious enthusiasm and unique light to every gig he played with us.”
Scheduled special guests with Thunder & Lightness this year include Skip Floraday and Jim Harder who were also percussionists with Turner’s popular Undertow and Rocky Way bands.
Friday’s music continues with Lincoln City’s Blue Variant blues band with guitarist Greg Ernst and drummer Jay Arce, and by the hard-driving local Rockfish band with Marla Fisher leading into the Portland-area headliners.
The well-known local acts on the Saturday schedule include the high energy local ‘80s dance band Weird Science with Pirrello in rocker mode, guitarist Kevin Strever, keyboardist Anne Bertucci and drummer Barbara LePine. Leading into the visiting headliner band on Saturday is Six Eyes High with Jay Arce on drums again, Marla Fisher and more coastal rock ’n’ roll.
The headliner band on both Friday and Saturday at 7 pm is River Divide, a four-piece “country/rock crossover” band from the Portland area.
The Lincoln County Fair runs from 10 am to 7 pm on Thursday, July 4, and 10 am to 9 pm on Friday and Saturday, July 5 and 6, at the Lincoln County Fairgrounds, 633 NE 3rd Street.
Admission to the fair and all Main Stage music is free and all the acts are family friendly.
For more information and a detailed schedule, go to.thelincolncountyfair.com/schedule