Two-Day Art and Music Festival Comes to Vail-Leavitt Music Hall

Riverhead will not see its annual Blues Festival in 2011, but “Filling the Void” brings new music and art to downtown Riverhead in its place this weekend. The kicked off Friday evening at the , and ends on Saturday night.

The festival features live music upstairs on the main stage and a themed curated art show downstairs. Local and regional bands from Long Island, Brooklyn, and Connecticut are on the line-up for both Friday and Saturday nights, with genres ranging from indie-pop to hard rock to hip hop.

Four bands will play Saturday night: Prospector, from Brooklyn, is hard rock; Agent Danger, from Long Island, plays live techno; Ava Luna, from Brooklyn, plays music that is melodic and filled with harmony; and Ancient Tongue, from Long Island, plays hip hop.

Allen Boulos of FRESH, who helped plan the arts half of the festival, explained that after he learned there would be no Blues Festival this year, he and Matt Evko of Live@ Recording decided it would be a great opportunity to fill the music void.

“We need more music and art to keep the scene alive on Long Island now that the Blues Festival is gone," Boulos said.

Boulos said he was upset the Blues Festival was cancelled this year.
"It was politics,” he said, “and that shouldn’t factor into music.” Boulos said.

A separate exhibition downstairs called “The Great American Living Room” places the visitor inside a three-dimensional “elegy to the television,” Boulos said. Additionally, a wide range of art is on view and for sale in the front gallery.

Boulos and FRESH redesigned the Vail-Leavitt both to emulate a 1950s living room and to draw attention to a new, computerized world in which television has no place. He added the Vail-Leavitt was a great venue for the show.

“[The] theater is so awesome,” said Boulos of the Vail-Leavitt. “It’s not often you get to walk into a theater build in the 1800s.”