FESTIVALS |Illinois homegrown Here’s a festival you’ll want to explore if you love vino, bluegrass or country music. For a small
admission fee, Hill Prairie Winery will give you a free glass you can take with
you in the winery sample room and a full day of music outside under the
pavilion. Sunday is slated for bluegrass music, with Second Harvest, The River
Ramblers and Tom Irwin playing. Country music fills the air on Memorial Day as
Hillbilly Circus performs from 1-3 p.m. and Seeing Daylight takes the stage
from 3-6 p.m. Doors open each day at 12 p.m. While the establishment asks that
no coolers, food, drink or pets be brought to the festival; food, desserts and
glasses and bottles of wine are available for purchase. Don’t forget your lawn chair. Oakford is only 30 minutes north of Springfield, just
up the road from Petersburg.
Wine and Music Festival
Sunday and Monday
May 24-25
1pm-6pm
Hill Prairie Winery
Route 97, near Oakford
635-9900
$5
TALENT SHOW |Illinois’ up and coming Illinois’ Got Talent is a talent competition that takes place this Saturday at our very
own Hoogland Center for the Arts. Twenty-three acts from throughout Illinois,
from Chicago to Herrin, will be showcased. The performers range in age and
talent. Scheduled acts include a soloist, dancers, and a musical group. Judges
are from Dolphin Entertainment, the country’s largest independent producer of children’s and young adult programming, including Nickelodeon. American Idol Season Four
finalist, Jared Michael Yates, is one of the judges and also performs during
the evening.
Illinois’ Got Talent
Saturday, May 23
7pm
Hoogland Center for the Arts
420 S. Sixth St.
523-2787
$22
HISTORY |Party like it’s 1859 A party takes place Saturday that you won’t want to miss whether you’re a history buff, a partygoer, a person with a sense of adventure or someone
looking for something different and interesting to do. The Abraham Lincoln
Presidential Museum is hosting a re-creation of the Lincolns’ social scene with period crafts, toys, games and free music. Some activities
are an additional charge and strawberries, desserts and beverages are available
for purchase. If you want to brush up on your 19th century social skills and
manners, this is the gathering for you.
Mrs. Lincoln’s Strawberry Party
Saturday, May 23
10am-2pm
Union Square Park
Sixth and Jefferson
Free
ART |Imaginative plants On display at the museum through July is, “The Leaf and the Page,” an exhibit featuring 11 contemporary Illinois artists who draw their
inspiration from nature and create distinct visions of fanciful, surreal,
beautiful, ironic and humorous plant images. Giant stainless steel plants,
weeds made from trash, mushroom books growing out of the wall, and delicate
stitched leaves are a few of the delights in this exhibition. The artists do
more than mimic the form of plants; they play with material and scale to
illustrate the symbolic and metaphorical connection between humanity and the
natural world. Materials and media include: leaf embroidery, handmade paper,
collage on archival paper, color lithographs, welded clay, stainless steel,
gouache, watercolor on paper, gouache on paper, graphite on paper, collected
materials and collage on board.
The Leaf and the Page
Through August 9
Monday-Saturday
8:30am-5pm
Sunday
12-5pm
Illinois State Museum
502 S. Spring Street
782-7386
Free
BAND SPOTLIGHT | Hipbone Sam w/Bad Bill and Country Bruce Hipbone Sam, the alter ego of Kevin Hawkins, plays the area music scene with “three chords and a capo,” plus a load of fun tunes and the determined heart of a dedicated entertainer.
Hawkins, the lead singer in Jack Flash, a local Rolling Stones tribute band,
hosts an open mic every Thursday at Chaser’s Iron Horse Saloon and books shows wherever and whenever else he can to make a
living playing music. By using veteran performers like Bad Bill Robinson on
harmonica (this Saturday, May 23, at Chaser’s from 3 to 6 p.m. in the beer garden) and Country Bruce Baise on guitar (next
Friday, May 29, at Chaser’s) and banjo guru Kyle Kiesling (this Friday, May 22, at Weeble’s, formerly the Black Dog Bar on Peoria Road), Hipbone keeps the music rolling,
the players hopping and the crowd rocking.
Hipbone Sam
Open mic every Thursday,
8-11 pm.
Chaser’s Iron Horse Saloon, 3039 Peoria Rd.
www.myspace.com/hipbonesam
This article appears in May 14-20, 2009.
