Who needs Cinco de Mayo when the City of Savannah and the Latin American Services Organization are throwing this sizzling hot - and completely free - bash on River Street?
Hot, as in this late-June weather, and hot as in a half-dozen fiery performers and food vendors selling all manner of spicy victuals from the Caribbean, Cuba, Central and South America and beyond?
This is the fifth annual Fiesta Latina. Among the entertainers:
Imapacto Latino (13 members, with horns, vocalists and a full compliment of percussion including congas, guiros, bongos, claves and maracas, from Florida); Los Mentirosos, a 10-man norteno (Mexican country) band from North Carolina; Pruera ADN, a three-member Latin rock band from Atlanta.
Then there's Miami-based Local 34 (seen in the photo), featuring Aneudy Lara, originally from the Dominican Republic. Lara co-stars on the Telemundo soap opera Mas Sabe el Diablo (The Devil Knows Best), as the fast-talking street hood Marcos "El Mocho" Llacome.
El Mocho, Lara says, "is a jolly good fellow and a joker. A criminal on the street, but not ruthless. He is one of those you see in the slums of the United States and Latin America that steals and does evil, but has a good heart."
Lara is the singer and keyboard player for Local 34, a high-energy quartet blending rock, salsa, meringue, reggae, hip hop and bachata. Listen & learn: www.myspace.com/local34music.
11a.m.-8 p.m. Saturday, June 26 at Rousakis Plaza, River Street. Free. Local 34 also performs Saturday night at 10 at Rancho Alegre.
CHECK IT OUT
Ohio indie rockers Jacob & the Good People are at the Rock House Tybee at 10 p.m. Friday, June 25...Savannah tropical Latin band Grupo Kachimbo (salsa y meringue) plays the Tantra Lounge Saturday the 26th - keeping everything at caliente levels after the day's Fiesta Latina on the river ...
THE GINA RENE QUINTET
It's a Savannah celebration at the fab Jazz Corner in Hilton Head, with stylish vocalist Gina Rene - a local musical jewel since the early ‘90s - fronting a band that includes Kirk Lee on trumpet and flugelhorn, Eric Jones on piano, drummer Billy Hoffman and bassist Peter Berquist. Listen & learn: www.thejazzcorner.com.
At 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, June 25 and 26 at the Jazz Corner, 1000 William Hilton Parkway, Hilton Head.
DARE DUKES
It's always a treat when our finest local singer/songwriter makes a live appearance here (he's on the road a lot, and spends half of his time working in New York City, and is also in the early stages of recording his second CD). This night, Dare - a winner in our recent "Best of Savannah" readers' poll - will share the stage with Savannah's own General Oglethorpe & the Pangandlers (love that name) and Julia Haltigan, a New York singer/songwriter (one of Dare's Manhattan pals) who covered "Boots of Spanish Leather" on the tribute album Listen to Bob Dylan. She's got her band, the Hooligans, with her.Listen & learn: www.daredukes.com, www.juliahaltigan.com, www.myspace.com/generaloandthepanhandlers.
At 7 p.m. Sunday, June 27 at the Sentient Bean. 13 E. Park St.
