Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY — Several streets in downtown Salt Lake were closed down for several hours Saturday night, but not for anything bad. It was for a concert, or rather, 11 concerts, happening simultaneously. It's called Porchfest and it's the first time it's happened in Salt Lake City.
Porchfest is where local bands and musicians gathered to play, literally, on the front porches of about a dozen homes in Salt Lake. On one, a rock band. A few houses down, something a bit softer. Everywhere was a different sound.
While the musicians played on the porches, folks wandered from house to house or just sat out on the front lawns to enjoy the free shows.
"You know, it's a confusing concept to start because you've never seen it," said
Phillip Bimstein and his band Blue Haiku have been playing 'Heart and Soul" concerts for the past ten years.
"It's been very rewarding, especially when you play some old songs that these seniors can relate to, you can see their feelings come out and they're reawakened," Bimstein said.
It turns out this particular neighborhood has quite a few musicians living in it, so convincing residents here to open their porches for a few hours wasn't too hard. Just the uniqueness of the idea created a buzz.
"It's like a great big neighborhood block party with their own being the star and then some great bands coming in as well," Lauer said.
Porchfest ended tonight with a grand finale, where several of the bands got together on one stage and played. Of course, they plan to do it again next year.
