Wilmington to host new music festival

A music festival next month along the Wilmington Riverfront will raise money to rebuild the Queen Theater on Market Street in downtown Wilmington.

Next month, the Wilmington Riverfront will play host to Bromberg’s Big Noise in the Neighborhood, a all day concert event on May 15 featuring Wilmington’s own David Bromberg.

The concert festival will benefit the Light Up the Queen Foundation, which is raising  money to restore the historic Queen Theater on Market Street in Wilmington into a live concert venue.  Bromberg says the benefit concert will help restore not just the Queen, but also Wilmington’s downtown.  “The Queen is the single most important building in my estimation in downtown.”  Bromberg says, “We’re lighting up the Queen, and it’s going to bring life to this city that it hasn’t seen in decades.”

In addition to Bromberg and his band, performers include Grammy award nominee John Hiatt; bluegrass innovator Sam Bush; founding member of Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna, Jorma Kaukonen; jam-band Railroad Earth; and Angel Band.  Light Up the Queen executive director Bill Taylor says the line up is a tribute to the career of David Bromberg, who is in one way or another connected to every other band on the bill.  Taylor says, “The reason they’re coming is not necessarily because of Light Up the Queen.  I think that maybe helped, but the reason they all said yes was because of David, their respect for David and the fact that they’ve performed and recorded with them over the years.”

The festival starts at noon on Saturday, May 15.  Tickets are $32, with two dollars of every ticket purchased going to Haiti relief efforts through the Art Creation Foundation for Children which is based in Jacmel, Haiti, and the Benjamin Harris Josephson Fund, which sends health care workers to disaster areas.