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The AmeriServ Flood City Music Festival has been known for spawning impromptu jams in recent years, and this weekend was no exception.
And Sunday, apparently Mother Nature wanted to get in on the act.
A summer storm threatening damaging winds forced organizers to shut a main stage Sunday, but it didn’t stop the music. The festival’s final day wrapped with 11 acts, including bluegrass legend Del McCoury.
It also didn’t stop a solid crowd of festival-goers from flocking to Peoples Natural Gas Park and surrounding venues well into the evening.
“We’ve had a great festival,” event communications director Shelley Johansson said. “We had a legend here in Dr. John, who was magic Saturday night. The Smithereens were wonderful ... and Anders Osborne ended up on stage with (blues guitarist) Eric Tessmer. It’s the kind of stuff that makes a festival setting special.”
And even more so, given this was JAHA organizers’ festival with the new Peoples Natural Gas Park and Polacek Pavillion concert-ready. The pavillion and indoor Oilhouse, sponsored by Peoples Natural Gas and Atlantic Broadband respectively, served as two of the four stages for the event’s nearly three dozen acts.
The musical mix impressed Wes Bowser of Johnstown.
“A couple reggae bands back-to-back. Some bluegrass picking and a little psychedelic rock. It’s great,” he said, referencing Sunday’s schedule.
Behind him, bayou bluesman Sonny Landreth had a crowd of about 600 listening as he slapped and tapped at an electric guitar.
Now in its fourth year, the young festival is earning a reputation, said Mark Wilt of Lewisburg. He said family members who live closer to the area have been raving about it for years.
“So finally, I told them ‘Yeah, I’ll be in for it,’ ” Wilt said.
He said he wasn’t disappointed.
“Just a great, great variety of acts,” he said. “Dr. John. The Harlan Twins. I’m glad I came.”
The weather threw Sunday’s plans a bit of a curveball, though, in Johansson’s words.
Organizers decided to tear down the Bud Light stage, the largest venue, at noon, worried that high winds might do it for them if an incoming storm hit hard.
“We just didn’t want to risk an accident,” she added, noting it was also the lone venue that
didn’t offer shelter from the elements. “Fortunately, the new site is finished so we had those two venues under roof.”
It meant shuffling acts between three stages – and a more compressed schedule.
It also meant coordinating with performers to make sure their equipment found its way to the right place.
“It’s been hectic but I think things have gone as smoothly as anyone could have expected,” Johansson said, crediting the festival’s several hundred volunteers for making it happen. “We have a lot to feel good about.”
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