More than 1,000 Evanston residents gathered at Dawes Park Tuesday to lounge and dance to the sounds of Mucca Pazza, a 30-piece “circus punk marching band.”
The evening concert, staged by Starlight Concert Series, was a hit, said Laura Eckstein, program manager for Evanston Cultural Arts Division.
“I would say (Tuesday) was our biggest show to date,” Eckstein said. “We get crowds for specific bands that are really well-known local bands and they have a big following.”
The series, a lineup of live music performances held outdoors throughout the summer, is sponsored by the City of Evanston. Eckstein has worked on Starlight for three years, but said the city-sponsored program is much older.
“It’s been going on since certainly the ’70s in various iterations,” she said. “There’s no clear record of when the series began.”
The series comprises of six Thursday shows at James Park, six Tuesday shows at Dawes Park, and two concerts each at Harbert Park and Twiggs Park. The shows at Dawes Park, 1700 Sheridan Rd., and James Park, 300 Dodge Ave., attract the largest crowds, Eckstein said, due to their easily accessible location. Musical acts range from Mexican-American jams from Allá to R&B by Milt Trenier.
? and the Mysterians, pronounced “question mark and the mysterians,” is a band from the 1960s that scored hit songs like “96 Years” and “Can’t Get Enough of You Baby.” The group played at James Park on June 25 and attracted one of the largest crowds so far.
Starlight also brings local bands to perfom, such as Birdnames, a Chicago-based group playing James Park Thursday evening. David Lineal, singer and guitar player for Birdnames, said his band often plays alternative-style venues, including houses and lofts.
“I think it will be pretty fun,” Lineal said. “We’re kind of like park people, so spending an evening in the park is cool, and playing music is cool, and doing them together is cool.”
Birdnames has been together for five years, and describes their genre of music as “radical play.”
“A lot of our music is in weird time signatures,” Lineal said. “There might be lots of strange dancing, kids do wacky dances. I hope there will be some of that.”
Starlight is bringing Evanston-native Ezra Furman, along with the Harpoons, to Twiggs Park Aug. 6, before the group plays a Saturday morning show at Lollapalooza in Grant Park. Furman said he started writing songs while he was a student at Evanston Township High School and met his band’s manager at Tommy Nevin’s Irish Pub, a few blocks from where he grew up.
His Starlight show will be a one-of-a-kind moment, he said.
“All the shows are special,” he said. “The shows are all meant to, at least for me, feel like it’s a present or unique gift for the audience – something they can have just for themselves.”
Each of Furman’s shows bears a title, and his Aug. 6 performance at Twiggs Park will be called “Field of Wonder,” a nod to a friend of the band who has memories of his childhood in Evanston.
“It’s someone who our manager knows,” Furman said. “(He’s) one of the many, many people who is behind the scene who allows our bands to exist and allows us to be functional.”
Starlight shows are free to the public, and the series is also sponsored by the Illinois Arts Council. Although the cultural arts division was able to maintain the same flat budget for the concerts this year, Eckstein said she isn’t certain that will be the case in the future.
“Every municipal government is experiencing a crunch, so we’re of course conscious of that, and we’re going to try our hardest to work with the city,” she said. “We try to really keep things bare-bones no matter what. Our biggest goal is…to bring a fun event or fun experience to people in all different neighborhoods in Evanston, where people can eat dinner and let loose and think this is a great part of living in Evanston.”
