It’s a sweetheart of a deal; two summer Somerset-area festivals, mostly music but also maxing out on muscle, and singer Amanda back at a place close to her, as Huey Lewis would sing, heart and soul:
– I must reference again, three hearts for a sweetheart! Jawsy featuring lead singer Amanda will be back at the nightclub where she formerly bartended and sang, Dick’s Bar and Grill, on Friday evening, July 17, starting around 6. A chalkboard sign at Dick’s announcing the gig had a trio of Valentines-style hearts colored around her name.
– There are two large-scale events in the Somerset area all this weekend. One is the Sonshine festival, which features all forms of Christian music. The Somerset mega-music-marathons follow in the footsteps of OzzFest, which attracted as many as 40,000 fans and you might be surprised to know gave strong credence to secular bands that are unusually spiritual, especially on its main stage. Sonshine’s main headliner, Skillet, follows to a great degree in that metal tradition. Like most previous festivals, Sonshine also will have multiple stages, each devoted to a particular genre largely defined by instrumental style.
The fest starts in earnest on Thursday and runs until late-night all weekend at the Somerset Amphitheater, which is known for its music friendly bowl shape that works well with all those stages on the east side.
– Also expected to draw many thousands of spectators is the nearby Tough Mudder competition, part of a national circuit whose miles of obstacle courses, for an example, are even much more intricate then some of those old school metal concert stages (am I sensing a trend?) These extreme athletes will hit the Game Unlimited Hunting Club just east of Hudson along County E for most of the day Saturday and Sunday, and fans should get there bright and early, since upwards of 15,000 are expected at the 900-acre club. Officials say the event brings in between $2-10 million to the local economy, and this would buy a lot of celebratory victory beers at local establishments. See websites for details on both these events.