Strands of chartreuse, gold and sapphire lights reflect off of the dark, rolling currents of the Mississippi River as Lauryn Hill takes the stage. Trading bar for bar with fellow Fugee Wyclef Jean at the forefront of a 10-piece band, the reunited hip-hop act electrifies a swarm of smartphone lights and the occasional cigarette lighter burning into the swampy, southern air.
As a mid-song interlude transitioned into the first melodies of Hill’s effervescent 1998 hit, “Doo Wop (That Thing),” the lights begin to pierce through a smokey haze wafting over a crowd on the Memphis riverfront.
Memphis has been hosting a music festival on its riverbanks in May since 1977. Almost without fail, the festival coincides with the coming of summer rains and thunderstorms pounding a dark, cloudy line over the flatlands of eastern Arkansas before smashing straight into the 100-foot bluffs holding the city’s foundations.
Tonight, the Fugees join a long line of entertainment greats who have played chicken with the weather to perform in one of the world’s great music cities. Aretha Franklin, B.B. King, Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis, John Mayer and Jay-Z have scattered sonic ashes into the air here. So too have Chuck Berry, Soundgarden, Ed Sheeran, Beck, Weezer and omnipresent hip-hop legends Three 6 Mafia, the reverberations of their creative genius burrowing into the bluffs and bouncing off of the distant, steel pyramid welcoming travelers from the west.
Occasionally in perfect weather with a brisk breeze blowing off of the water; but more often in between soggy deluges, an entourage of the world’s great musicians have performed for a city that in one way or another helped to nurture them all.
“You know I did get to rock it with Mr. B.B. King,” Jean says, before bending strings into his own spin on a blues progression that the Haitian hip-hop megastar could have plucked straight from a Beale Street bar a mile away. Energized by the performance and captivated by the appearance of the almost mythical Hill, the crowd began to pulse into a bobbing, breathing human interpretation of the river’s rolling water, forming a captivating backdrop to one of the band’s rare performances since splitting up in the late 1990s.
But this Fugees performance almost didn’t happen.
In October of 2023, the city’s longstanding festival presenter—Memphis in May International Festival—put its 47-year-old Beale Street Music Festival on hiatus. Citing declining attendance (37,000 in 2023 from a pre-pandemic average of about 100,000), a reduced capacity at its traditional home in Tom Lee Park and a $1.7 million repair bill to refurbish the recently renovated 31-acre riverfront park after its 2023 show, the non-for-profit organization suspended the
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I believe every trip to the Amalfi Coast should be just as beautiful as the coastline itself. Like the roughly 5 million travelers who visit each year, I fell in love with the Amalfi Coast while on vacation. In fact, I loved it so much that it's now been my home for 17 years.
Belfast did not have the best of starts to 2024. Never mind the mass public sector strikes, the not-unrelated fact of Northern Ireland being without a functioning government (the government returned, the strikes were settled, or suspended … for now), at the end of January, one of the city’s most respected – revered – publicans, Pedro Donald, who over the years had brought us the John Hewitt, La Boca, the Sunflower and the American Bar, announced that he was leaving for Amsterdam. There may not be bombs and bullets any more, he said, but Belfast was “a dump and derelict”. Indeed, apart from a few good years between the Good Friday agreement and the financial crash, the city was in many ways no further on than when he started in the trade in 1984.
In April, Cooper Wallace, a nine-year-old boy from the U.K., went viral after winning the final of the Gull Screeching Championship. Despite seeming niche, the event had a huge turnout of visitors from all over Europe and led to a peak in searches on Google for the tournament and its main vocal activity.
To some, Atlanta is the urban music center of the world. To others, it’s the Hollywood of the South. To chef Marcus Samuelsson, the Dixie metropolis is a vibrant culinary hotbed that was missing his personal stamp.
If you’re seeking a few days of live entertainment, drinks by the pool, luxury shopping and highly innovative culinary experiences courtesy of the world’s most sought-after chefs, you’re in luck. Wynn Las Vegas, the opulent, 4,748 room property that elevated Sin City’s hospitality scene when it opened its doors in 2005, is launching its first-ever culinary festival, Revelry, from June 5 to June 8.
Airline rage? Passengers being duct-taped to their seat? Arrests after landing? That is the state of much of air travel today – and it makes a lot of people yearn for the Golden Age of Travel – when Pan Am ruled the skies. And people actually dressed up for the occasion.
Rife with pristine beaches and sprawling sand dunes, Nantucket has served as one of the Bay State’s foremost tourist destinations for well over a century—and to sweeten the deal, this scenic island also comes complete with a thriving food scene for visitors to enjoy. Seafood reigns supreme around the island, with no shortage of classic Massachusetts dishes up for grabs spanning from lobster rolls to New England clam chowder, while high-end wines can be encountered all throughout the island’s many restaurants. Yet for those who want to experience the region’s prowess at both drinking and dining in one fell swoop, there’s no better event than the annual Nantucket Wine & Food Festival.
Whitening. Herbal. Charcoal. Color changing? I'm in the toothpaste aisle at Target, dumbfounded by a selection that runs several shelves long and as many high. After more than 20 years in Cuba, where Close-Up and La Perla were the only choices for most of that time, I'm overwhelmed by the number of options. If Target triggers paralysis, I shudder to think what terror Costco might elicit.
Summer is the perfect time to combine a road trip through Ontario with a jamming live music festival. Whether your passion is rock, jazz, blues, or trending pop, these five summer music festivals have something for everyone. It’s also an opportunity to discover up and coming local musicians and bands that will be performing against the backdrop of Ontario’s rugged natural beauty. This diverse east-central Canadian province borders the United States and the Great Lakes and is home to rich varied landscapes, vibrant multiculturalism, and fun events happening all summer long. So grab your dancing shoes and sense of adventure to experience the best music in Ontario for summer 2024.