On the second Friday of the summer months, hundreds of people gather in Richmond’s historic Point Richmond neighborhood for a night of music, dancing and community-building that has been happening since 2001.
This year, the Point Richmond Music Festival series kicked off on June 13, drawing an estimated 300-plus attendees. People of all ages gathered at Park Place and Washington Avenue to catch performances by Chris James and the Showdowns and Maurice Tani.
Richmond resident Jenny Walden told Richmondside that night that the festival has introduced her to other Richmonders and offered a space for building community.
“It’s a nice place to run into people you’re just acquainted with,” Walden said. “Not just Point Richmond, but Richmond and all of the communities around here.”
That type of sentiment, volunteer organizer Christina Zirker said, captures the festival’s mission.
“It feels like a street party,” she said, “and a chance to catch up with neighbors and meet new people from the community and just enjoy the live music.”
Bruce Kaplan, a volunteer on the festival organizing committee, told Richmondside that social connections and bringing the Richmond community together is what the event is all about.
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“The people who want to dance are up front, the people who want to listen are in the middle, and the people who want to talk are in the back.”
— Bruce Kaplan, Point Richmond music festival board member
“The people who want to dance are up front, the people who want to listen are in the middle, and the people who want to talk are in the back,” Kaplan said. “But that’s what community building is. You want people to talk if they want to talk. You want people to dance if they want to dance.”
Kaplan (who sometimes performs folk music on the Point Richmond stage with his wife Claudia Russell) is one of nine people on the organizing committee, a group that has been meeting since Andrew Butt, son of former Richmond mayor Tom Butt, first organized the festival almost 25 years ago.
That first year, Andrew Butt recalled, the bands played in the green space behind his architecture firm at 117 Park Place. Now the festival organization is a registered nonprofit with Butt serving as president of the music board.
“Every year, people tell me, ‘Oh, that’s the most people ever!’ ” Butt told Richmondside. But still, he said, “The point is music. Keep it fun and simple and focus on the music.”
Point Richmond music festival draws some big names thanks to last-wish donation
Despite the festival’s homegrown simplicity, it has pulled in some big-name performers.
Last year, Oakland native and now-three-time Grammy winner Fantastic Negrito performed.
“It was like New Orleans hit the East Bay,” attendee Brooke Deterline told Richmondside.
They were able to sign Negrito, Andrew Butt said, because Point Richmond attorney Karen Wargo bequeathed $50,000 to the festival — literally on her deathbed.
“(She) wrote via pencil on a pad ‘to Point Richmond music’ as she was being wheeled into a surgery which she did not survive,” Butt wrote in an email to Richmondside.
If you go
What: Point Richmond Music Festival
When: Second Fridays: July 11, Aug. 8, and Sept. 12.
Where: Point Richmond, at the corner of Park Place and Washington Avenue
Parking: Railroad Avenue and on East Richmond across from the elementary school.
Though the festival recruited Fantastic Negrito, bands typically land a spot on the calendar through an application process. About 100 bands apply each year, Kaplan said, and the committee listens to every one before choosing eight.
Chris James, the guitarist for Chris James and the Showdowns, was performing for the first time this year.
“We’ve been trying for the last five years to get into this festival,” he said. “This year they liked what we submitted.”
At the June show, chairs were lined up facing the center stage, and crowds sat on the sidewalk and lingered around the street to catch some of the music.
Others waited in line for $5 drinks, donated by the Richmond-based beer company East Brother Brewing Co., with the proceeds benefitting the festival.
In between the dancing and the locally brewed beer, organizers walked around with No Kings rally pins and handed out flyers for the next day’s nationwide protests.
What then, is the role of music in the face of political turmoil?
“If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution,” attendee Ken White said, quoting the Russian activist Emma Goldman.
“And we never leave without dancing,” his partner Brooke Deterline added.
Organizer Zirker also explained how vital volunteers are to the event.
“It’s a totally community effort,” she told Richmondside. “The only people who are paid are bands, and that’s an important part of our mission to provide local bands that are doing original music with places to play that provide competitive compensation.”
Each spring, the committee posts a flyer to recruit volunteers for the upcoming festival cycle on Facebook and Nextdoor. Interested community members can respond and become part of the hardworking volunteer team.
Anyone who has volunteered at the festival (selling merchandise, cleaning up, bartending) can serve on the board the next summer, Kaplan said.
“We don’t just want to be a bunch of old geezers,” he said.
Thanks for the coverage! FYI- article images are not showing up.
This is a wonderful event to integrate our city. Does anyone have ideas to bring Blacks and Hispanics/ Herspanics to the festival?