SunFest 2011 Wrap-Up originally published on Food and Fond Memories on May 3, 2011 by sandyaxelrod 0 Comments (Edit)
SunFest 2011 Wrap-Up
See you next year SunFest!
Just thought you might like a little wrap-up of our time at SunFest 2011. We enjoyed sunny days and balmy breezy nights jammed packed with fantastic music and great camaraderie. We met so many people at SunFest. Some who had been coming for almost as many years as Steve and I, and a few newbies as well. For us the true highlight of the entire event was Sunday which seemed to be Jazz day. The festival opened at noon on Sunday and Steve and I arrived at about one o’clock. It was a postcard perfect day. Hot and sunny with just enough of a breeze to keep us comfortable. We brought chairs with us and parked them center stage at the Meyer Amphitheater on the grass. It wasn’t really crowded when we arrived but we knew by late afternoon it would be packed. The first group that we listened to was the Memphis Soul Revue. They had gone on at about 12:15 so by the time we got situated we only heard one or two songs. During the break between bands we had our first opportunity to visit the art booths. After having been on the art show circuit ourselves we knew that a lot of our artist friends would be there so, for us, it was more about visiting than shopping. We are always happy to see so many of the people we used to travel with and now that we’re not doing shows any more the festivals in South Florida are our only opportunity to visit with them. One photography artist, Wendy Vroom, we are especially fond of was there so we spent a little extra time with Wendy to catch up with her. We met Wendy and her dad Larry several years ago when our booth was right next to hers at Art Deco Weekend in Miami Beach. It was January and very chilly for Florida. Business was brisk and so was the air! We fell in love with her nature photographs that she prints on canvas as gallery wrapped giclees and even though we really had no space for more artwork we had to buy a piece. The colors of her flowers are so vivid the piece just fit in with our home, so we rearranged our existing collection of art a little and made room for a Vroom.
At 2:15 we were back in our comfy seats at the amphitheater to hear the Preservation Hall Jazz Band from New Orleans. Boy could they wail! We had heard them way back in 1992 when we made our first trip to the Big Easy for a Catering Conference and had Sunday Brunch at Preservation Hall. It was such a treat to hear them again sounding even better than we remembered. After that Miami’s Elements of Jazz came on and rocked the house. Once they were finished we took another walk through the festival which by this time had gotten quite packed with people. We wended our way back to our seats and decided to stay put and listen to rocker Jeff Beck with our friends Maria, Mike and Doug who had joined us there instead of going to the main stage to hear Earth, Wind and Fire. We were certainly glad we did because Jeff Beck and his band were absolutely amazing!! After his encore we packed up the chairs and headed over to the Captain Morgan’s Floating Oasis to park ourselves until the Verizon Fireworks show was over. We had the perfect vantage point right in front of the two barges used to shoot off the best pyrotechnics display you ever saw. Twenty minutes of an incredibly dazzling spectacle that has to be seen to be believed. No photos or videos could ever do it justice. Totally spent from a long day in the sun and with raspy voices from screaming cheers to astounding musicians we wearily walked back to our car and headed home to crash in our cool comfortable bed.
