The Weeklings, featuring Glen Burtnik and Bob Burger, below, are among the musical acts adding savour to the Sunday’s Red Bank International Flavour Festival on White Street. (Click to enlarge)
It’s positioned as a family-friendly, fresh-air celebration of international food, music, wine and beer — and it’s undeniably one of the more popular and successful seasonal attractions to pitch its tent in Red Bank within recent years.
Back for a fourth annual world tour in the White Street municipal parking lot, the Red Bank International Flavour Festival returns this Sunday for an afternoon/ evening session that mixes many of the best-liked attributes of the old-time Red Bank Food Festivals and the latter-day Oysterfests.
The event draws thousands of food lovers who drink up the sunshine, not to mention wine and beer. (Click to enlarge)
Scheduled for noon to 7 pm, the happening from promoter RUE Events teams the culinary kung fu of some 20 Red Bank restaurants and food purveyors — take it here for a roster of participating eateries, and here for a rundown of featured food and drink — with a strolling smorgasbord of vendors that include beer and wine for purchase. It’s all for the benefit of some worthy borough-based entities, with proceeds dedicated to the ongoing operations and programs of Red Bank RiverCenter, Monmouth Day Care Center, and Parker Family Health Center.
Adding sonic spice to the affair is an enhanced menu of music and dance acts on two stages; a global shuffle-mix that spans reggae (Verdict), showband salsa (Ray Rodriguez and Swing Sabroso), Scottish marches (Atlantic Watch Pipes and Drums), Celtic (O’Pocketful, Patricia Murphy Irish Dancers), Afro-Brazilian rhythms (Virago), as well as Shore partyband perennials (B Street Band, Brian Kirk & the Jirks).
There’s also the debut Flavour Fest appearance by the Weeklings, the newly minted project co-fronted by music-biz masters and sought-after songwriter/ session cats Glen Burtnik (Beatlemania, Styx) and Bob Burger. Playing the tunes of the Beatles (and not necessarily the most obvious ones at that) in addition to their own “original songs in the style of the Beatles,” the quartet hits the East Stage behind the Dublin House for a sweet-spot set at 3 pm. Take it here for a complete schedule of live music acts, with band bios and pertinent web links.
Admission to the RBIFF festival area is just a $5 donation (with kids ages 10 and under getting in free), and there’s a rain date of Sunday, May 3 – though the forecast is favorable. For additional info, visit the event website or email [email protected].
