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Fun Fest started with a slow Friday aft rollout, but then got rolling with rock ‘n’ roll. It was just ducky as far as attendance, especially involving Mallard’s and their new bands offering. Gee wasn’t that the pattern with Hudson’s Booster Days?

Enuf said, as the Fun Fest in New Richmond was down on that rager, like a Wild Badger. Or Mallard’s, so to speak.
They again, as I understand in most years even before the introduction of the band at that venue, poured through the hundreds and hundreds of patrons. Or one only pales about the number at River Falls Days on their same Saturday, as I do compare, with their new grant.

— But there is a big fest across the St. Croix this weekend also, and it has more to do with Lumberjacks, rather than what’s to be found on Paperjack Street in New Richmond. See the Uncategorized Department. —

So here’s how it goes: The biggest Fun Fest of the bunch was the (new) band at Mallard’s, as if the Fun Fest needed more traction. Everyone was congregated around the stage, and I engaged the person selling beer tickets, who said it was a bit hit and miss, as everyone would like steady, and appeared bored (as servers sometimes do, as she looked for someone from my past) for the moment.
There was the guy selling festive glowing sticks who was wearing such that included devil horns, (and there is that Ronnie James Dio thing that is a misunderstood urban myth thingee, actually part of his Italian matriarch roots). And over at Bobcats, there was no karaoke as a part of the usual all-weekend deejay mix, only requests for this particular evening(s). A thousand points of light? They could be seen glittering on the sidewalks, speck by speck.
But Sunday’s parade, that was moved up a half-hour to noon this year, missed the rain on the parade, I assume if it it was like most of the experience around the area, by just a tad. Psst. A cabbie verified it on Monday, after a weekend that was filled, in part, with going around parade detours. And back to River Falls, they were back to a standard parade format, not the walk by, that being done by the viewers of last year — social distancing benefits have gotten mixed reviews.

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