MUSIKFEST
Musikfest is a ten-day-long community music and arts festival on the Delaware River in Bethlehem, PA on the site where the Bethlehem steel plant used to function as one of the top producers in the nation before shutting down in the early nineties. In short, it’s a really interesting place.
Musikfest was started in 1984 as a way to use the arts to revitalize the town of Bethlehem after the steel plant shut down. When the factory- known as Steelstacks- was closed, steelworkers planted trees at the top of the blast furnaces as a symbol of the potential that the area still had. Now, all these years later, the trees still grow and Steelstacks is being renovated into the new ArtsQuest Center. ArtsQuest’s goal in Bethlehem is to “take a unique setting and turn it into something positive,” Curt Mosel said. Mosel is the director of marketing and PR for ArtsQuest. “It will be a huge win for tourism and more opportunities for the 25,000 college students that live in the Lehigh Valley area.”
The Doobie Brothers kicked ass on Wednesday night and that’s all there is to it. Tom Johnston and Pat Simmons, two original members from the band’s 1970 California formation, still looked full of spirit after decades of playing. Johnston wears the most epic rock ‘n roll mustache and 80s hair ever while Simmons looks like the devil’s doorman.
They played three tracks from their first new album in ten years, World Gone Crazy. They were called “Nobody,” “World Gone Crazy,” and “Back to the Chateau.” They were classic DB and made more impressive by the fact that these guys have been writing new original material for over forty years!
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