By Chip Chandler — Digital Content Producer
Amarillo will celebrate the power of music at the first Yellow City Sounds Music Festival.
The Band of Heathens and several favorite Amarillo bands will join forces with Panhandle PBS and FM90 to launch the new festival.
The inaugural festival — Music that Changed the World, featuring popular hits from the Vietnam War era — will run noon to 10 p.m. Sept. 2 at Memorial Park next to the Washington Street campus of Amarillo College.
The event is free.
Americana greats Band of Heathens will close out a night full of bands performing soul music, folk music, classic hits and more. They'll take the stage around 8:15 p.m.
Other acts include The DustJackets at noon, Maggie Burt at 1 p.m., Insufficient Funds at 2 p.m., The Deltaz at 5 p.m., hONEyhoUSe at 6 p.m. and Zac Wilkerson at 7 p.m.
A jam session of in-demand Amarillo solo musicians will be featured at 3:30 p.m., including Andy Chase, Eddie Esler of Eddie & The Eat, Mike Fuller, Tyler Horning (formerly of Strangetowne), Tennessee Tuckness and Ray Wilson.
Food trucks Purple Flamingo Popsicles and Marble Slab Creamery will be lined up in the parking lot between Carter Fitness Center and the Panhandle PBS/FM90 studios. Fire Slice Pizzeria will sell slices of pizza, and Aspen Creek Grill will hand out food samples. (Other planned food trucks won't be able to join us this year, unfortunately.)
At the Panhandle PBS Kids area, children can take part in activities and craft-making from 2 to 5 p.m. at booths from Amarillo Museum of Art, Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum and Panhandle PBS.
Booths from Henna House, CG Designs, Usborne Books for Children, Amarillo College Teach Club, Street Auto Group, Haven Health Clinic and Plemons Eakle Neighborhood Association also will be on hand.
Parking for the festival is available at 24th Avenue and Jackson Street, 22nd Avenue and Van Buren Street and 22nd Avenue and Washington Street, with some limited parking on the street near the park.
Outdoor chairs, blankets, sunscreen and bug spray are encouraged. No glass bottles are allowed in the park.
The festival is sponsored by Amarillo College, the Gilliland Family Foundation, Tarpley Music, Street Auto Group, Plemons Eakle Neighborhood Association, Rabern, Budweiser Distributing Co. and New Day Productions.
The music festival is part of an intense focus on the war centered around the upcoming Ken Burns and Lynn Novick documentary The Vietnam War, debuting Sept. 17 on Panhandle PBS.
The station also will host the Wall That Heals, a traveling replica of the Vietnam War Memorial, from Dec. 6 to 10 in John Stiff Memorial Park, 4800 S. Bell St.
For information, call Panhandle PBS at 806-371-5479.
Chip Chandler is a digital content producer for Panhandle PBS. He can be contacted at Chip.Chandler@actx.edu, at @chipchandler1 on Twitter and on Facebook.
