2015 Rochester Free and Cheap Concerts

Someone requested a list like I created last year that had the cheap and free concerts.  I was able to relatively quickly pull together a version for Rochester.  The Bands on the Bricks acts haven’t been announced yet but most venues have published their series.

Here’s a printable  version as well: 2015concerts-bydate

Date	Day	Artist	Venue
6/3	Wednesday	Revolver (60’s & 70’s music)	Concerts by the Shore @ Ontario Beach Park (7pm) Free
6/4	Thursday	Mounafanyi	Hochstein at High Falls (noon) FREE
6/5	Friday	Hall Pass/Me & the Boyz/ Acoustic Crew	Park Point (6pm)  Free
6/10	Wednesday	Allegro (Jazz, 60’s to 90’s & Latin)	Concerts by the Shore @ Ontario Beach Park (7pm) Free
6/11	Thursday	Cammy Enaharo	Hochstein at High Falls (noon) FREE
6/17	Wednesday	The Coupe Devilles (Party Band)	Concerts by the Shore @ Ontario Beach Park (7pm) Free
6/18	Thursday	moe. / Jonathan Scales Fourchestra	Party in the Park @ MLK Park (5pm) $5
6/18	Thursday	Mambo Kings	Hochstein at High Falls (noon) FREE
6/19	Friday	Sauce Boss	Jazz Fest Jazz Street Stage (7:30 & 9:30) Free
6/19	Friday	The Mavericks	Jazz Fest Jazz Street Stage (9pm) Free
6/19	Friday	Spectra	Jazz Fest Jazz Street Stage (7pm) Free
6/20	Saturday	The New Mastersounds	Jazz Fest Jazz Street Stage (7:30 & 9:30) Free
6/20	Saturday	Blood Sweat & Tears with Bo Bice	Jazz Fest Jazz Street Stage (9pm) Free
6/20	Saturday	Goodbyemotel	Jazz Fest Jazz Street Stage (7pm) Free
6/21	Sunday	HARD LOGIC	Jazz Fest Lidestri Spirit Stage East Ave & Chestnut (7 & 9pm) Free
6/21	Sunday	The Rad Trads	Jazz Fest Jazz Street Stage (7:30 & 9:30) Free
6/22	Monday	SIGNIFICANT OTHER	Jazz Fest Lidestri Spirit Stage East Ave & Chestnut (7 & 9pm) Free
6/22	Monday	Mike Kaupa	Jazz Fest Library 115 South Ave (noon) Free
6/22	Monday	Stephanie Wrembel	Jazz Fest Jazz Street Stage (7:30 & 9:30) Free
6/23	Tuesday	JIMMIE HIGHSMITH JR	Jazz Fest Lidestri Spirit Stage East Ave & Chestnut (7 & 9pm) Free
6/23	Tuesday	Denny Ziemann	Jazz Fest Library 115 South Ave (noon) Free
6/23	Tuesday	New Horizons Vintage Jazz Band/ Music Educators Band	Jazz Fest Jazz Street Stage (7:30 & 9:30) Free
6/24	Wednesday	Julie Dunlap (Country)	Concerts by the Shore @ Ontario Beach Park (7pm) Free
6/24	Wednesday	ROSES & REVOLUTIONS	Jazz Fest Lidestri Spirit Stage East Ave & Chestnut (7 & 9pm) Free
6/24	Wednesday	Mel Henderson	Jazz Fest Library 115 South Ave (noon) Free
6/24	Wednesday	Gypsophilia	Jazz Fest Jazz Street Stage (7:30 & 9:30) Free
6/25	Thursday	Taj Mahal / Spirit Family Reunion	Party in the Park @ MLK Park (5pm) $5
6/25	Thursday	Something Else	Hochstein at High Falls (noon) FREE
6/25	Thursday	TEAGAN & THE TWEEDS	Jazz Fest Lidestri Spirit Stage East Ave & Chestnut (7 & 9pm) Free
6/25	Thursday	Doug Stone	Jazz Fest Library 115 South Ave (noon) Free
6/25	Thursday	Soul Stew	Jazz Fest Jazz Street Stage (7:30 & 9:30) Free
6/26	Friday	Mike Melito	Jazz Fest Library 115 South Ave (noon) Free
6/26	Friday	The California Honeydrops	Jazz Fest Jazz Street Stage (7:30 & 9:30) Free
6/26	Friday	Los Lonely Boys	Jazz Fest Jazz Street Stage (9pm) Free
6/26	Friday	Robin McKelle & the Flytones	Jazz Fest Jazz Street Stage (7pm) Free
6/27	Saturday	Robin McKelle & the Flytones	Jazz Fest Jazz Street Stage (7:30 & 9:30) Free
6/27	Saturday	Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue	Jazz Fest Jazz Street Stage (9pm) Free
6/27	Saturday	Freshly Ground	Jazz Fest Jazz Street Stage (7pm) Free
6/27	Saturday	Ikebe Shakedown	Jazz Fest Jazz Street Stage (5pm) Free
6/27	Saturday	Bill Tiberio Band	Jazz Fest Jazz Street Stage (3pm) Free
7/1	Wednesday	Atlas (Party Band)	Concerts by the Shore @ Ontario Beach Park (7pm) Free
7/2	Thursday	Fastball / Zac Brown Tribute Band / Jumbo Shrimp	Party in the Park @ MLK Park (5pm) $5
7/8	Wednesday	RPO (Classical & Pop)	Concerts by the Shore @ Ontario Beach Park (7:30pm) Free
7/9	Thursday	George Clinton and the Parliament Funkadelic	Party in the Park @ MLK Park (5pm) $5
7/9	Thursday	Dady Brothers	Hochstein at High Falls (noon) FREE
7/10	Friday	Tryst/Teagan & the Tweeds/See Alice	Park Point (6pm)  Free
7/10	Friday	TBA	Bands on the Bricks @ Rochester Public Market (6pm) Free
7/15	Wednesday	Greece Jazz Band & Mr. Mustard (Beatles Spectacular)	Concerts by the Shore @ Ontario Beach Park (7pm) Free
7/16	Thursday	Get the Led Out	Party in the Park @ MLK Park (5pm) $5
7/16	Thursday	Talking Under Water	Hochstein at High Falls (noon) FREE
7/16	Thursday	The Cottage Pickers	Hochstein at High Falls (noon) FREE
7/17	Friday	TBA	Bands on the Bricks @ Rochester Public Market (6pm) Free
7/22	Wednesday	The Skycoasters (High Energy Party Band)	Concerts by the Shore @ Ontario Beach Park (7pm) Free
7/23	Thursday	Jonny Lang / The Coup DeVilles	Party in the Park @ MLK Park (5pm) $5
7/24	Friday	TBA	Bands on the Bricks @ Rochester Public Market (6pm) Free
7/25	Saturday	Neo-soul	Roc the Park Urban Music Festival @ MLK Park ($5)
7/29	Wednesday	Dady Brothers Grand Band (Irish)	Concerts by the Shore @ Ontario Beach Park (7pm) Free
7/30	Thursday	Victor Wooten / Aqueous	Party in the Park @ MLK Park (5pm) $5
7/30	Thursday	Laura Dubin Trio	Hochstein at High Falls (noon) FREE
7/31	Friday	TBA	Bands on the Bricks @ Rochester Public Market (6pm) Free
8/5	Wednesday	The Invictas (Original Rock & Roll)	Concerts by the Shore @ Ontario Beach Park (7pm) Free
8/6	Thursday	Dylan Scott/The Lacs (co-headliners)	Party in the Park @ MLK Park (5pm) $5
8/6	Thursday	The Jane Mutiny	Hochstein at High Falls (noon) FREE
8/7	Friday	R&B	Roc the Park Urban Music Festival @ MLK Park ($5)
8/7	Friday	TBA	Bands on the Bricks @ Rochester Public Market (6pm) Free
8/12	Wednesday	Krazy Firemen (German & Big Band)	Concerts by the Shore @ Ontario Beach Park (7pm) Free
8/13	Thursday	Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad / Driftwood  / Noble Vibes	Party in the Park @ MLK Park (5pm) $5

Buffalo/Niagara area 2015 summer concerts

The Buffalo Business Journal printed a great list of all the concerts showing in the Buffalo/Niagara area this summer.  I don’t know the cost of these concerts but I’m guessing most of these are not cheap, but there are lots of big name acts.  Most of these should be no further than a 1.5 hour ride from Rochester.  You might find something here that interests you:

Buffalo/Niagara summer 2015 concertsm

Which ones sound good to you?  There’s something for every music lover.

An update

I know I fell off the face of my blog about six months ago.  After 5+ years of weekly posts I needed a break and decided to take the summer off and then when the fall arrived I still wasn’t ready to get back into the swing of things.

With some thoughtful consideration of what I was willing to do, I decided to start a new blog for the new year.  Back in 2008 I made a new year’s resolution to try and take at least one picture per day for the entire year.  It’s harder than you think.  I managed to take pictures for about 300 days that year.  I posted them in an online photo album and shared with friends and family.

I’ve decided to resurrect the challenge in 2015 but post the pictures to a new blog I’ve started.  I hope you’ll take time to stop over and check it out.  I’m not sure if I’ll add any more posts to this blog, but once in a while I might have something I want to share with you.

 

2014 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 11,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Pics to take with your cell phone or camera

One of the advantages of digital cameras and cellphones with cameras are that you can use the cameras to capture things other than standard images.   I wasn’t born in the digital age so it doesn’t always come naturally to me to think about taking a picture instead of using some other mechanism to retain info.

I bought some flowers this weekend, a variety I had never heard of: Coreopsis.  I knew that next year when the plants came back up I wouldn’t remember a thing about them, including the name.  So I took a picture of the label that came with the plant.  I did that with the other varieties of plants I bought as well, alternating with a picture of each plant.  So next year, I can go into a store and ask for some Coreopsis or Calibrachoa Caberets (purple and white flowers pictured) and know I’ll like what I’m getting.

A few weeks ago I attended a charity event with friends.  They had bought a raffle ticket for a $10,000 prize.  My friend showed me a pic of the ticket on his iPhone, proof of owning the ticket just in case it got lost.  Snap a picture of any important documents in case you need the info in a hurry or you want proof you had the document in your possession.

A friend of mine, who was shopping for blenders, asked me to check prices in one of the warehouse clubs I belong to.  There were a number I found I thought she might be interested in, so I took a pic of each one, as well as the price tags which showed features and prices.  I was able to send her the pics and not have to worry about writing it all down and possibly missing key attributes.

My husband and I have been looking for a new vanity for our powder room.  Every time one of us comes across a new item, we take a pic of it along with the price/description.  Those pics come in handy when you’re trying to remember and compare similar items.  After a while, everything starts to look alike and these pictures can help you remember key details.

A few years back we were robbed and had to let the insurance company know what was stolen.   A lot of items were taken and it was a little hard to figure out what was missing.  In some cases we still had the boxes (because my husband never throws out the box for anything “important”) which helped us prove exactly what models of each item were stolen.  For years I’ve heard about the idea of photographing all of your possessions for reasons just like that, but we have a lot of stuff and it sounds overwhelming.  I have started taking pictures of the model and serial numbers on bigger ticket items we purchase just in case.

Pictures are not just pictures anymore, they’re data .  What unusual items have you used your camera or cell phone to take pictures of?

Emergency garage sale

A couple of months ago I got a flyer saying there was going to be a neighborhood garage sale in June.  At first I was excited because a neighborhood sale offers the best opportunity to make money since it will draw a bigger audience than a normal sale.  But then I realized I wasn’t going be able to participate because a) my boss was on vacation that week so I couldn’t take time off and b) my husband had completely taken over the garage because of a few projects he was working on.  So I resigned myself to missing out.

The sale was scheduled for this past Friday and Saturday.  I was working from home Friday and saw all the buyers I was missing out on drive  by and said something to my husband.  He turned around and said, well let’s have a sale on Saturday.  At first I thought he was nuts, but then I thought about it a bit and figured it wouldn’t hurt to make a go for it.  So around 2pm Friday we decided to have a garage sale at 8am Saturday.  I also had plans for Friday night.  My husband immediately set about cleaning out a third of the garage for me while I finished working.

As soon as I was done working, I started getting out the boxes of items I’d been sticking it in the attic in anticipation of the next sale.   I started pricing and organizing items as best I could.  I also started looking around the house for other items I could possibly sell.  I worked up until it was time to go see Big Bad Voodoo Daddy.  When I returned home at 11 I started moving things out to garage, finally heading to bed at 1am.

The next morning I got up early and started setting up shop.  We were able to open at 8am.  But since this was day 2 for the neighborhood sale,  things started out slow.  I only made one $3 sale in the first hour.  I told myself I’d be happy with selling $50 worth of stuff.  Eventually traffic picked up and my husband kept bringing out more items to sell.  We finally got rid of the basketball hoop (for $10 since it needed a new net and was not in the best of shape) and a gas weed whacker.  I was happiest to sell my son’s entire collection of Mega Bloks Dragons (about 12 sets) so we could get them out of the house and my son could earn a bit of cash.

In the end, we did much better than I anticipated.  We brought in just under $250 and got rid of some items.  When it was over, much of the leftovers went back into totes for the next sale, and the rest went to Goodwill.  By Saturday dinnertime  I had cleaned everything out of the garage so my husband could change the oil on Sunday.

2014 WNY concerts by date

Per my husband’s request, I’ve improved my concert list by adding a listing of all concerts by date so you can easily see what’s going on any given day.  I’ve also made a few small corrections to the listings.  Enjoy!

6/23 Updated the listing to include a few missing dates.

2014 WNY Concerts v4.0

Is a bigger house better?

When my husband and I bought our first and only home almost 25 years ago it was our “starter” home.  We didn’t have kids (wouldn’t have them for another six years) and figured we would eventually trade up for a bigger house as our needs grew and so did our incomes.  But somehow we never got around to upgrading, which turned out to be a good thing because once the kids came we worked part time for eight years until my husband got laid off.  In hindsight, we didn’t really need a bigger house so it was a blessing our incomes dropped before we could make any kind of move.

I heard on the radio the other day the average size of a new house in 2013 was 2598 square feet.  After hearing that, it’s hard to believe people can live in an 84 square foot house like this woman or this man in a 300 square foot micro apartment.  I’ve consciously decided not to carry a large purse like many women because I know it means carrying around a lot of stuff I don’t need.  I think the size of a house works the same way.  The bigger the house the more belongings you’ll accumulate that you probably don’t need.  I don’t want to end up like my parents, moving lots of stuff I probably don’t need.

Free and cheaper 2014 WNY Concerts

I was excited to see that Big Bad Voodoo Daddy was coming to the Rochester International Jazz Festival this month and even happier to find out it was one of the free concerts.  This got me working on my annual list of free and almost free summer concerts.  It took me a while to get it all together. Some venues are no longer around (Lockport Canal Concert series) but there are new ones to replace it.  Another trend is the slowly rising cost of these events, not surprising given the improvement in the economy.  The 8 page compilation is evenly split between Buffalo-Niagara area and Rochester.  Enjoy and let me know of any events I’m missing.

2014 WNY Concerts v4.0

Note: the version posted here matches the file referenced elsewhere in this blog.

 

 

Downsize and free yourself

My siblings and I banded together to help my 78 and 83 year old parents downsize to a smaller 2150 square foot ranch (bigger than my house) a few weeks ago.  One of the main purposes in moving from a house they loved, but which they knew they couldn’t stay in long term, was so they’d be forced to purge some of their possessions.  Mom and Dad have their own set of “crap” and neither wanted to deal with the other persons stuff so the thought was they’d be forced to get rid of a lot of it in the process of moving.

Things didn’t go according to plan.  The house sold 4 days after being put on the market (they receivied four offers, two over their asking price).   The details of the deal were finalized as they left for their annual month-long trip to Florida.  They returned to their Amherst home to start frantically packing and ended up closing and moving less than a month later.  Needless to say, they didn’t have time to sort their belongings and instead packed and moved most of them.  As my siblings, husband, brother-in-law and I hauled boxes out one door and into another we all vowed to purge our own belongings long before we got to my parents’ age.

I recently came across this great online article entitled: Organizing is Turning You Into a Hoarder and it really hit home with me.  In the past, my husband’s solution to having too much stuff was to go out and buy more totes and shelving units to store it.  I’d hit my limit a while back and decided maybe we should get rid of some items, but he hadn’t hit his. I’m hoping the experience of moving my parent’s “useless” stuff will hit a chord with him and make him rethink his strategy.