Blues Fest Permit Gets Green Light

After three board members  for the Riverhead Blues Festival, despite a current lack of insurance, the town board gave the permit the green light on Tuesday.

At Tuesday's Town Board meeting, the board voted 4-0 of approving the permit, with Councilwoman Jodi Giglio abstaining from the measure. Giglio has not favored granting previous special permits on the grounds that no insurance was set up, and cited consistency for her reasoning last week.

Whatever anybody's reasons for or against, Vince Tria, 's treasurer, said that he was "one happy camper" on Tuesday.

"We're not fooling around this year," he said. "We want to put on a great show."

Tria said he's planning on getting Johnny Winter, who produced several records with one of the greatest blues legends in the history of the musical genre, Muddy Waters.

Winter was ranked the 74th best guitarist of all time by Rolling Stone critic DavidFricke, ahead of Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour and AC-DC guitarist Angus Young, and right after Eddie Van Halen and Phish's Trey Anastasio.

With a permit for the date - June 16 and 17 - in hand, Tria said he doesn't believe getting insurance should be a problem. Tuesday's resolution requires Vail-Leavitt obtainint insurance coverage b May 1.

Now Tria said he's just praying for nice weather.

"I gotta talk to the Big Guy upstairs and see if we can get some good weather," he said.