Hometown Holidays Grows Up

Hometown Holidays turned 22 and matured. This year’s festival was full grown in every way. The artists expanded to fill two streets with high quality creative pieces. The green market offered many more products including >Twilight Candle Shop’s soy candles made in Damascus and free books to reuse and recycle.

An energetic group of nonprofit organizations, including the Rockville Express Baseball team and the Human Rights Commission, engaged passersby.

The music and entertainment on all seven stages spanned the spectrum of music and magic while visitors flocked to the very popular Taste of Rockville zone.

Billy Coulter who lives in Rockville was a true hometown favorite and when I first heard the band, I spun around and went to listen.

A giant screen from the Cartoon Network changed our local corner into a mini-Times Square. Also in the big City category, people had the chance to appear on local Channel 11 TV.

You could even meet human-sized cupcakes and cookies.

Sunday night’s headliners brought high expectations. Jah Works from Baltimore had the crowd pumping with traditional Jamaican reggae but unfortunately Soul Asylum self-destructed. After the Ride and Stride I happened to be hanging out with our friends and I heard a big sound from the main stage which could only be Soul Asylum. In the late morning sunshine they decided to eventually play a full song then played five. Scott from Guiseppi’s Pizza and I had a private, mostly acoustic concert. They wanted to know if the music was a standard for condos in the neighborhood. Really, they were good.

Now I’ll confess. I only like their first two albums from the early 80’s meshing a cutting-edge alternative sound. I’m not fond of “Runaway Train” although one fan made a cardboard train and they invited him to join them on stage so clearly people liked this hit. In fact, after they played it, most of the crowd left. I understand how this must have brought them down. So down in fact that their encore consisted of them starting heavy metal, reggae and rock-a-billy songs then abruptly stopping. People were yelling “Finish a song” while they kept saying “All right we’re leaving.” Until the lights and sound were turned off on them. I wish they could have played the music they enjoyed during their morning sound check instead of what they thought the crowd expected. For me the high point was “I Need Somebody To Shove” which they played first.

As you walked down the streets during Hometown Holidays, you felt a real energy from this event. I saw people I knew and met others who introduced themselves, but, of course, the majority were unknown to me. During Sunday night’s headliner concert introduction by the Mayor, City Council and Maryland State Senator Jennie Forehand, Mayor Phyllis Marcuccio asked who was from Rockville and had a loud response. Then Councilmember Piotr Gajewski asked who was from New York and had a few, which he then followed up with “who is from someplace other than Rockville” and there was a bunch. He invited them to come back and visit again. Hometown Holidays has grown from a local gathering to a showplace for Rockville. We do have a terrific City to share.

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