Home ›

Waterfront Blues Festival

Jul 2 2010 - Jul 5 2010  •  Portland OR  •  Downtown Waterfront


Founded: 1987
Title Sponsor: Safeway
Official Website
Phone: 503-973-3378
Email
Category: R&B
Region: Pacific North
Type: Urban Outdoor

"The Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival has grown from a small, modest, one-day festival to the largest blues festival west of the Mississippi and the second largest in the nation, stretching over five days with 120 plus world-class performances on five stages. This is a festival with depth – workshops, interviews and music demonstrations teach people about America’s original contribution to music. It couldn’t happen any place else in the world … a fabulous setting, on the grassy banks of the Willamette River with the Portland skyline as a backdrop."—Description by festival




VIDEO FEED
To view video, hover your cursor over a thumbnail image. Video is sourced from Google Video search.

Blues Cruises

Cruise the Willamette River on the Portland Spirit and hear legendary blues artists perform on the boat's three intimate stages. The festival offers two evening and three afternoon blues cruises.

Fireworks Show
<p>Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival, presented by First Tech Credit Union, will commemorate July 4th and celebrate America's rich, original and most important contribution to music&mdash;the blues&mdash;with a spectacular display of fireworks, presented by Wildhorse Hotel and Casino.</p>

Behind the scenes: Safeway Waterfront Blues food drive (video)
Fri, 07/10/2009 - 19:13

Every year Safeway Waterfront Blues holds a food drive in conjunction with the Oregon Food Bank. According to this Skanner News video interview with Jean Kempe Ware of the Oregon Food Bank, this is a record-breaking year with the amount of emergency food needs in Oregon. Fortunately the food bank has many volunteers helping to collect and organize the food donations. Check out the video to see footage of the new temperature-controlled facilities and the volunteers in action.

Read more...
Waterfront Weekend
Thu, 07/09/2009 - 09:55

Check out some of the sounds from this year's Waterfront Blues Festival.

Robben Ford at the Waterfront Blues Festival Portland Oregon 2009
Read more...
Waterfront's Blues Blog is a good way to "bone up" for the festival
Sun, 05/31/2009 - 16:34

Among the attractions of the upcoming Safeway Waterfront Blues Festival in Portland OR are several horn-based ensembles featuring multiple trombones. In addition to the main stage performances by Bonerama and Big Sam's Funky Nation, the two New Orleans-based bands will face off in a so-called "Battle of the 'Bones" during a late-night set at the Marriott Ballroom on Saturday night.

To learn the background on that festival story and lots more behind the scenes information, check out Peter Dammann's Blues Blog at the festival website. Peter is the festival's talent coordinator and one of the best informed blues writers in the Pacific Northwest.

His blog is one of many great features available at the Waterfront website to help you "bone up" for the festival. In addition, you can check out the festival jukebox streaming music by scheduled performers, sign up to receive email news updates, or view photo galleries from festivals past.

Read more...
more