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River's Edge Fest starts out smoothly, breezily
Posted by: Chris Riemenschneider
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Music,
Concert news
Updated: June 23, 2012 - 3:40 PM
It has the biggest concert stage ever seen on Harriet Island, and maybe the entire Twin Cities. It has plenty of soft grass space for lounging and ample shuttle buses for getting folks here out of downtown. What it doesn’t have, however, are many better food concession stands than Taste of Minnesota, nor many bands to bring fans out early.
The crowds are streaming in gradually at the riverfront Harriet Island in downtown St. Paul for the first day of the River’s Edge Music Festival. Most of the fans appear to be fans of tonight’s headlining band, Tool (the 400 or so Tool T-shirts I’ve seen so far is what makes me guess that). They’ve been treated to breezy weather with just faint rain trickles so far -- which appears to be it for the rain concerns
They’ve also enjoyed some fun sets by bands most of them probably had never heard, including Kinky and An Horse. The former came all the way from Mexico to play California band Wall of Voodoo’s “Mexican Radio” (sort of akin to Lynyrd Skynyrd covering Neil Young’s “Southern Man”). The latter came all the way from Australia to play what frontwoman Kate Cooper said was their first set with a bassist (it was just a guitar/drums duo prior to this).
Some advice so far from the fest site for those on their way: Don’t come with a hunger for anything much better than the county-fair kind of concessions that people bemoaned for years during Taste of Minnesota’s run on Harriet Island, although the new Stanley’s food truck looks appetizing, and the $5-for-two taco deal at the fest-sponsoring Chipolte stand is a good deal for festival fare. Also, do bring fill-up water bottles. Unlike Rock the Garden last weekend, the refilling stations are easy to find and use. As for transportation, the bike parking and/or shuttle drop-offs are right outside the gate and very convenient. And like all Harriet Island events, there is $15-$20 parking on the south side of the park that’s much closer than downtown.
Here is the festival's site with a schedule of the rest of today's bands.
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