lmillegan's blog

Check out www.xfestmodesto.com for the lineup for this year's festival. Headliners include Augustana, Baby Bash, Lit, Foghat, Elliott Yamin, DJ Skribble, Paula Deanda and We the Kings. Big annual music bash is July 18 in downtown Modesto.

- Bee arts writer Lisa Millegan

Brad Kava, an organizer of the Santa Cruz Blues Festival scheduled this weekend reports that Modesto is buying the second most tickets, after Santa Cruz.

Apparently, we Modestans really love the blues and Santa Cruz.

"The whole Central Valley is buying tickets, including Merced, Fresno and Sacramento," Kava said in an email. "I'm impressed with the numbers and realize we wouldn't survive without them, so a big thanks!"

The festival runs 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at Aptos Village Park, 100 Aptos Creek Road. Performers include BB King, Joe Cocker, Keb Mo and Jackie Greene.

There's no parking there so ticket holders are urged to park at nearby Cabrillo College and take a shuttle. General admission tickets are $60 for adults an $25 for kids each day or $100 and $40 for a two-day pass. Check out www.santacruzbluesfestival.com for more details.

- Bee arts writer Lisa Millegan

The comedy was raunchy rather than clean as advertised but the crowd didn't seem to mind at Thursday's opening night of the Modesto Comedy Festival at the Clarion Hotel on Sisk Road.

About 50 people turned out to see AJ Jamal ("In Living Color"), Renee Gauthier ("Last Call with Carson Daly"), R.T. Steckle, Adam Bomb, Sam Bam and emcee Speedy "The Jamie Foxx Show." For a VIP ticket of $30, you could sit on tables at the front. For $20, you could sit on folding chairs in the back. One harried waitress served drinks for an additional charge.

My favorite was R.T., who did a great impression of rapper Snoop Dogg as a third grade teacher and sang a Popeye's commercial as Barry White. He also did a funny riff on his Southern relatives mispronouncing Spanish words.

The same lineup performs in the same location tonight at 8 p.m. Promoter Marquis Greer hopes to bring new comedians out to the hotel once a month. For more information, visit www.modestocomedyfestival.com

One thing you can say about Mexican-American singer Lila Downs is that she knows how to put on a show.

The stunningly gorgeous singer showed up for tonight's Gallo Center for the Arts show in an intricately designed fringed indigenous type dress and rarely stopped dancing throughout her 90-minute set. For added dramatic effect, she alternately twirled around a bright yellow shawl and a blue feathered boa. Behind her were a kaleidoscope of images and figures projected on a large video screen.

I was thrilled that she mostly sang songs off her catchy new album "Shake Away." Ever since I got a copy a few weeks ago, I've been listening to the disc nonstop. As usual, she finds away to draw on a variety of global influences and have it all make sense. While most of her songs have a Spanish or Mexican twist, they also feature American Indian, country, African, Celtic and Jewish influences.

Even though he’s much more comfortable writing about sporting events, guest reviewblogger Brian VanderBeek happily took Lisa’s seat at the Gallo Center for the Arts for Tuesday night’s concert by the Five Peace Band.

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If Miles Davis is the accepted father of fusion, Chick Corea and John McLaughlin are its wet nurses.
It was 40 years ago that Davis’ album “In A Silent Way” brought the electric approach to the merger of jazz and rock music, and he chose keyboardist Corea and guitarist McLaughlin to help with the birthing process.
On Tuesday night at the Gallo Center for the Arts, Corea and McLaughlin showed that the fusion cause is very much alive, a genre still very much worth nurturing.

The seven actors in Aquila Theatre got a real workout tonight in their performance of Homer's "The Iliad: Book One" at the Gallo Center for the Arts.

All played multiple characters, switching back and forth between humans and mortals. They tumbled on the ground, ran in slow motion, climbed up towers of trunks and collapsed on the floor. It was tiring just watching them.

The show, which follows the ninth year of the Trojan War, was set in World War II and included gas attacks and the sounds of fighter airplanes. There was also a lot of loud, tense, dissonant music to increase the sense of danger and pumped him fog to create mystery. There wasn't any set except a few trunks that were pushed around and stacked up to create everything from a boat to Zeus' throne.

Tall, dark and handsome John Buxton made for an appropriately dashing Achilles. Brian Silliman was unsympathetic as the angry king Agamemnon.

Modesto Symphony Orchestra pops conductor Steven Reineke is inviting people to sing their favorite Broadway hits to his piano accompaniment March 25.

The free event is at 6 p.m. at Clayton's Restaurant, 1016 H St., Modesto. Singers will receive a complimentary well drink.

Reineke will conduct the orchestra's "Let's Go to the Movies" concert at the Gallo Center March 27.

- Bee arts writer Lisa Millegan