The other band on the Wrench stage was Rebel Diaz, a Hip Hop group from Brooklyn, New York. It was a real treat when I saw my friend Chris Diaz (not part of Rebel Diaz) who is a rapper, opening for the band. I enjoyed his performance and the gathering crowd was getting warmed up and ready for the “main attraction.”
Rebel Diaz was great. Hard-hitting hip hop; gritty, powerful and real, performed with energy and passion. Great stuff.
But what I enjoyed most was the faces of the young people in the audience. We watched as the young people converged on the Wrench stage, drawn by the beat and the cheers and, perhaps, by the prior knowledge that “their own music” was coming at them. Whatever brought them there, this young crowd came to sing and shout, to stomp and dance, and to listen and applaud these two young men and one young woman from Brooklyn.
On the other stages there was more great music. Lining the street and sidewalks were the food booths with all their treats, the other booths with jewelry, T-shirts, political buttons and bumper stickers and all the rest. The fantasy of Third Thursday was upon us!
We ended the evening at the Wrench, breaking down the stage, listening to a CD by Rebel Diaz and swapping stories about the street fest.
The transformation of our Downtown into a fantasy of music, food and friends enjoying it all has happened again. The Third Thursday Street Festival brings it to life a half-dozen times a year. I am delighted to have taken part in it again.
Thank you Willimantic!
Willimantic, Now and Then:
3rd Thursday:
Watching the Fantasy Unfold!
By Mark Svetz
There was an excitement in the air on May 17. I could feel it from breakfast on. There was a “company’s coming” kind of feel I could remember from childhood, when I wondered if my cousins would still like to climb trees.
“Are you going tonight?”
From our vantage point on Church Street, just off Main, Sarah and I could feel the gathering excitement all day. In the morning it was the anticipation of our friends and customers, talking about the music and the food and crowds to come. As the day passed, we started to see other signs: Public Works crews began setting out traffic barriers; others were lining up trash cans on the side streets, like partygoers waiting in line behind the velvet ropes for the bouncer to let them in. On North Street, next to QVCC, there was a sign on a long pole, laying on the sidewalk. “HELP” was written on it, and I wondered if the sign wanted me to bring it to the front of the line.
At one point in the afternoon, I had to run down to Beacon Pharmacy to pick up a prescription. I found Main Street to be an exciting hive of activity. Folks were busily setting up the Beer Garden in the space around the Windham Theater Guild. People were setting up equipment, fire trucks were standing by, others were setting up tables and tents.
Sarah and I have spent much of the last decade going to shows and music festivals to sell the things we make. I love arriving at a festival. The uncertainty of our own setup, combined with the frenetic energy of the site crews, leaves me with a wonderful sense of challenge and promise. I love the first pass through the site, looking for faces of dear friends whom we see no more than once or twice a year at this or some other festival.
It’s all so familiar from last year, but the little changes are exciting. The fantasy world that will be our home and place of business for the next few days is taking shape. This is when I start to get that “I have the best job in the world” feeling.
That is the feeling I had on Main Street on that Thursday afternoon as Downtown Willimantic transformed itself into that fantasy world that would be the Third Thursday Street Festival. I felt the same sense of challenge and promise. It was to be, after all, our first Third Thursday in our shop in Downtown Willimantic.
I stopped by to chat with some friends at the Wrench in the Works collective. It was the first Third Thursday for this new collective radical lending library, performance space and incubator for future collective community action. And the Wrench had the added responsibility of running one of the stages for the festival.
Talk about excitement! They were running cords and stretching cables, matching up jacks and looking for who knows what, all to bring the magic of live music to the festival. Everyone seemed to be having fun.
When the festival started we could hear the music from our shop. We had opened the doors, front and back, despite the damp chill. Out our front door we could hear music from what I think was the Footbridge stage. Out the back door I could hear the music from the stage near the Baptist Church. We watched the groups of people move down Church Street toward the excitement.
Mark Svetz and Sarah Winter own Clothworks, a shop on Church Street in Downtown Willimantic, where they make and sell clothing and bags. They are a half block off Main Street, where the Third Thursday Street Festival takes place.
It was great to feel like we were near the center of this thriving hub of fun and fantasy. Just like any music festival, really. Only way better because this is our home!
Later, when the festival was in full swing, I came out to see some of the magic. The Wrench had booked Lawless Coast, a local rock band that turned out to be really good. I made a point to see them because I know one of the young men in the band. I was glad I did. They did some nice covers and their own material, great dance music and good lyrics.
On my way back to the shop I got to hear Echo Uganda. This band of varying members from the Willimantic area and all over the world, plays mostly Ugandan music under the direction of band leader Gidion Ampiere, who is from Uganda.
They have been treating us to great music for the last few years, ever since Gidion teamed up with local musician and instrument-maker Dave Magnusen to form Echo Uganda.
WILLIMANTIC –June, 2007