If you don’t have any other plans, this is what you’re doing one day this weekend: You’re going to this art and music festival in downtown Sausalito. Northern California’s version of Americana — gorgeous, quaint, nostalgic, and this weekend especially, home of "positive energy,” as Paul Anderson put it. He’s on the festival board and has seen this evolve since the mid-1970s. “The art is beyond compare and you just walk through the grounds and listen to all this wonderful music and everywhere people are smiling. That’s something you’ll really notice. I’ve been all over the world, and there’s just more positive energy here than any place I’ve ever been.”
So here’s what you do. If you live in San Francisco, bike over to Sausalito, kids and all, or else take a ferry, or else drive, and if you’re coming from the south take the north exit to Sausalito. There’s plenty of parking, and the money goes to build senior housing.
At the entrance of the Festival you'll see that tickets are $25 for adults; $15 for seniors; $5 for kids between 6 and 12. Below six, free. And whether at the south end or the north end you’re going see right away the champagne. All other drinks are further in, even water. But at the entrance here is the champagne. It costs $10 a glass. If in doubt, just pay it. Pay it and drink it and just let go. This is the last of summer, and the beginning of a marvelous fall. So this is all celebratory. This can all be written off your soul.
And as you move through the festival there are volunteers everywhere, actually about 1,000 who are there to help you however the can. Remember that this is primarily an art festival, and the 60th anniversary, no less. So if that’s of serious interest you need to get there at 9 a.m. on Saturday. Or else on Sunday morning, after the judges have given out awards. One thousand artists applied; 270 made the jury cut. About 65 have never shown at this festival before. Something like 200,000 works will be on display. Moving on ... Three stages: Smashmouth on the last day. Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks on the first day (known for songs such as "I Scare Myself" and "How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away?"). Herman’s Hermits in between, along with The Yard Birds and America. Yes, that’s right, they sang “A Horse With No Name” and they’re coming to this festival from Japan and then off to Australia. Such is the power of a weird, iconic song.
Music includes Jazz and more, and do not miss Mill Valley’s own Nicholas, Grover, and Wray. Three girls, if you’ll permit, in harmony and humor, and whimsy, and better than ever, after all these years. “We make you feel something,” Wray has always said.
Three music stages and the third is for kids’ entertainment. Noon to 4:30 p.m. each day. Magic shows, family circus, music and acts, on and on. And by the way, if you’ve never seen it, on the festival grounds, there’s Bay Model Visitor Center, which features a scale model of the San Francisco Bay and its tributaries. It’s a model spread out over two acres and built in the 1950s by the Army Corps of Engineers to monitor the environmental impact of shoreline development, toxic spills and weather conditions. Cool.
Also cool, to mark the 60th anniversary, the festival is featuring 60 years of photographs marking moments that have been milestones in recent American history.
Sat. to Mon., September 1-3, 2012, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. (to 5 p.m. on Mon.)