Celebrate Fairfax 2017

Northern Virginia’s largest community-wide event, the 36th annual Celebrate Fairfax! Festival, is tomorrow, June 9th, through Sunday, June 11th at the Fairfax County Government Center. This family-friendly event features more than 130 performances on eight stages, carnival rides, hundreds of exhibits/exhibitors, nightly fireworks, the always entertaining DockDogs championships, and fair food! This will be my 16th year being part of the festival, meaning that I've been there long enough to finally be able to drive a golf cart! I say this every year, but where else can you see concerts for $15 at the door (or less if you get tickets at Wegmans today or buy them online) and get to see everything else the festival has to offer? Let me know if you can get tickets for one of the headlining bands for less than $15 (even without the fees) at another venue.*

Anyway, here are this year's main attractions:

Friday, June 9th at 8:00 p.m. - Bush

As the lead vocalist, guitarist and main songwriter behind multi-platinum rock band Bush, Gavin Rossdale has sold close to 20 million records in the U.S. and Canada alone. Together with Bush, he’s compiled an amazing string of 18 consecutive Top 40 hit singles on the Modern Rock and Mainstream Rock charts, including 11 that hit the Top 5.  Six of these became No. 1 hits: “Comedown,” “Glycerine,” “Machinehead,” “Swallowed,” “The Chemicals Between Us” and “The Sound of Winter.” Bush is currently touring in support of their newest album, Black and White Rainbows.



By the way, how do we live in a world where Machinehead has less than 2 million views on YouTube, while The Chainsmokers have over 100 million views for their song Paris?

Saturday, June 10th at 6:30 p.m. - Everclear with special guests Vertical Horizon and Fastball

It’s been 20 years since Everclear released their 1997 multiplatinum smash So Much For The Afterglow, yet the album remains a beloved fan favorite, and continues to inspire new generations of musicians & fans today. Bolstered by the record’s enduring popularity, Everclear are about to embark on a highly anticipated tour celebrating its milestone anniversary, with plans to perform the album front to back, including some tracks the band has never played live.  Everclear will be joined on this tour by special guests Vertical Horizon and Fastball.



Sunday, June 11th from Noon to 6 p.m. – The Sunday Brew

The newest addition to the Celebrate Fairfax! Festival, the Sunday Brew is a pop-up beer festival being held Sunday from 12pm to 6pm at the Bud Light Main Stage.  The Sunday Brew will feature 13 local and regional breweries, each with up to 4 types of craft beer on tap. This program will also include two stages of non-stop entertainment, beer-focused activities and exhibits.  All festival attendees are welcome to enjoy the music and activities; however, only those attendees that purchased the Sunday Brew ticket may will be able to taste the craft brews. Tickets are limited

For more information about the festival, check out the Celebrate Fairfax website.

In addition, please follow me on Twitter and Facebook as I'm sure that I'll share pictures during the weekend.


* For example, Bush is playing at the IP Casino Resort And Spa in Biloxi on June 30th and tickets start at $54. On July 1st, Bush plays the
Revention Music Center in Houston, and then at Stubbs BBQ in Austin on July 2nd. Tickets start at $35 at both locations with a $7.25 fee at Stubbs (and probably more for the Houston show.

2013 Celebrate Fairfax Guide (Update)

Northern Virginia's largest festival begins tomorrow and runs through Sunday evening. While I encourage you to visit the Celebrate Fairfax website for everything you need to know about the festival, I figured I would provide a guide on things to see and do.

This weekend's headliners are as follows:

Friday, June 7th: Everclear, Live, Filter & Sponge - 7:15 pm

Saturday, June 8th: The B-52s Third Eye Blind at 8:00 pm (see update below)

Sunday, June 9th: Spin Doctors at 4:30 pm

While I shared my thoughts about the Friday night show, I'm also excited about The B-52s Saturday night. Love Shack is a great song, and I hope that this is finally the performance where Shaquille O'Neal joins the band for their signature song. I saw the Spin Doctors open for the Rolling Stones in the mid-90s. Even all these years later, I question the band's credentials. Did they earn a doctorate or is it an honorary degree? If they just have a Masters degree, they really should change the name to the Spin Masters.

One of my favorite annual activities is spinning the Great American Restaurants' wheel. For $3, the worst you can is get a $10 gift certificate. Make sure you get to the festival early since there's always a line for this booth.

- While the headliners get all the attention, there are eight stages featuring both local and non-local performers. There are always really good bands that you have probably never heard of before.

- Underrated aspect of the festival: free Fairfax Water. The water is remarkably refreshing and we regularly use the Faifax Water plastic cups.

- This year, Celebrate Fairfax hosted their first ever Emerging Artist Competition designed in an effort to cultivate and showcase young local artists and create a cost-free way for the artists to show and sell their artwork at a festival. Emerging Artist winners are Nicole Lee, Ashley Morabito, and Kylie Growl. Check out their artwork in the Arts Market.

- There's a Shocktop look-a-like contest this year where you can win a beach town, hat, T-shirt, and cooler with speakers. To enter the "go orange challenge," dress up as the Shocktop mascot and go to the Shock Top Rock Stage from 9:15PM - 9:45 PM on Friday and/or 3:00-3:30 on Saturday. Participants must be 21 and will be judged on creativity, effort, and overall resemblance to the Shock Top Mascot.

- I'm intrigued by the DockDogs competition. I don't really understand how this works, but seeing dogs compete seems like fun.

I wrote about this years ago, but I think it is worth repeating. If you're 11 or older, the cost is $12 at the gate for admission to the festival. How much do you spend on tickets alone when you go to a concert anywhere else (ex. 9:30 Club, Wolf Trap, etc.)? Please also factor in the cost for all of the convenience and venue fees. The answer is more than $12 and often significantly more. Plus, for $12, you get access to all of the other stages and activities. While, naturally, you will pay more if you want food, beer or pop (yes I wrote pop) or ride on the carnival rides, I've never been to a concert that distributes free alcohol or food (or carnival rides for that matter).

If you haven't purchased tickets yet, you can still get discounted tickets at Wegmans in Fairfax, Dulles and Gainesville or on the Celebrate Fairfax website. When you buy your adult tickets online by Thursday and use Promo Code 195, Northern Virginia Family Service will receive $1 for every ticket sold!

Want more?

- The Mount Vernon Patch has your general information

- The Centreville Patch has the kids' perspective.

- Win tickets from Super NoVa Mom.

- The Red Cross will be there.

- NBC4 will be there too.


Finally, during the festival itself, make sure you check out Celebrate Fairfax's blog and Twitter page for updated information.

I hope to see you this weekend!

Major update!

The B-52’s were scheduled to perform at this weekend’s Celebrate Fairfax! Festival (on Saturday night), but had to cancel all of the band's immediate upcoming performances due to an illness to principal band member Cindy Wilson. Cindy’s illness is not life threatening but her doctor has ordered her to take immediate bed rest. Amazingly, in just a few hours time, the festival was able to secure a special return engagement to Celebrate Fairfax by THIRD EYE BLIND. What a get on 48 hours notice!

2013 Celebrate Fairfax Headliners

Major announcement that you're reading here first (unless you follow Celebrate Fairfax on Facebook or follow the bands). The Summerland Tour featuring Everclear, Live, Filter and Sponge is coming to Celebrate Fairfax on Friday, June 7th!



I don't think this video truly sells the show. Anyway, Everclear and Live were two of the biggest bands in the 90s. Live played a free concert at Ithaca College during my freshman year. They had just released the single Selling the Drama and didn't have a a big following at the time. I skipped the concert to play in an intramural soccer game. During my sophomore year, Live played a non-free show at Cornell and sold out. I didn't see Live then either, so I'm excited to see them in June. Meanwhile, Everclear performed a great show at Celebrate Fairfax about ten years ago. While either working or volunteering at the festival, I was asked to make copies of the set list for the band and crew. I'm letting you in on a secret. I made a copy for myself and still have it somewhere. Perhaps I can sell it on eBay for millions!

As for Filter, I really like Take a Picture. Random thought about this song: You think the lead singer has/had some issues with his father? I wonder if the song helped bring the two of them together.



I didn't think that I ever heard of Sponge, but I definitely recognize this song, Plowed.



Although the rest of the weekend's headliners haven't been announced yet, though I will post the information here when available, early bird tickets go on sale on April 5th on the Celebrate Fairfax website.