For its 23rd annual event, the October Sunday Festival Committee has come up with a new venue in Frenchtown and a new Cajun emphasis in both music and food.
The action — this Sunday from noon to 8 p.m. — takes place in the Joseph Aubain Ballpark. The offerings will include the traditional live music, heavy on country and bluegrass, and the perennial family fun and fund-raising activities of numerous not-for-profit organizations.
New in this year's lineup of events is a Taste of Cajun food competition in which local restaurants are challenged to vie for honors with their spicy recipes. After the judging, the food, in chili cook-off style, will go on sale to the public.
Headlining the musical offerings is a Louisiana dance band that calls itself Charivari, a Cajun term that more or less means something you know will be great fun, even though you're not exactly sure what it's gonna be. (The word in traditional Cajun communities referred to the practice of newlyweds' friends throwing a wild party at the home of the couple — on their wedding night.)
Charivari, a five-member group that performs waltzes, two-steps, fiddle tunes, Creole songs and more, is coming to the territory immediately after making its first European tour. The band's publicity says the musicians' "ability to perform the right song at the right time along with their enthusiasm . . . has kept crowds dancing and cheering for more throughout the country." It's scheduled to take to the October Sunday main stage a little after 5 p.m. Sunday.
Before and after that, audiences will get to see and hear, among others, the Antilles School Steel Hurricanes and Jazz Ensemble, V.I. Institute of Performing Arts dancers and gymnasts, Harmony Dem, Rob W. Paper, Nicky "Mighty Whitey" Russell, Groundsea, Blue Shoes, Public Nuisance and Janet Reiter. The entertainment finale will be an all-star jam for the "folks who just want to play together and have fun," the organizers say.
Tents will be set up to protect both performers and audiences from the sun and/or rain. There will be games and amusements for folks of all ages, including a petting zoo for the kids. Yet another new added attraction is a $25,000 Lucky Number drawing.
October Sunday got its start in 1977, a project of folk musicians Fred and Polly Watts and Sib's restaurant's then-operator Jimmy Loveland. The first 11 festivals were held at Sib's and in the field across from the Mafolie bar and restaurant. By 1988, growth forced a move to a larger venue, the Crown Bay landfill, where "a partnership was formed with Bill and July Grogan of Barnacle Bill's, who recognized the need for a family event which would also give non-profit organizations a chance to raise funds." In 1995, a mere five weeks after Hurricane Marilyn, a mini-version was staged in Emancipation Garden with generator backup. For the last three years, the fests have taken place in the Reichhold Center parking lot.
For this year, a new partnership has been formed by the festival committee, now headed by Richard Counts, with the VI Institute for the Performing Arts, which he helped to found a decade ago, as the primary beneficiary. VIIPA will receive all proceeds from Taste of Cajun food sales.
The Committee for the Betterment of Carenage, a Frenchtown civic group, is also collaborating in this year's event. With the festival committee, it will present a Cajun Carenage Fete evening of dancing to Charivari's music in Frenchtown on Saturday (rescheduled from Friday because of Hurricane Jose's interference with airline flights). CBC members will be selling food and drink from the concession stand. The band will play from around 6:30 p.m. "until the dancers drop." (What dancers? Anyone who comes out and can't resist the music!)
