Something For Everyone At This Year's West Fest

By Michele Lenni in Arts & Entertainment on Jul 8, 2010 4:20PM

Every time this year the ordinarily quiet neighborhood of Ukrainian Village at the intersection of Chicago and Damen is overtaken by a cavalcade of festival enthusiasts awaiting West Fest's hodge-podge collective of live music, pet and kid friendly booths, as well as your usual set of local food, bric-a-brac and art vendors. Past year’s lineups are certainly nothing to sneeze at with world-renowned acts like The Meat Puppets, Red Red Meat and Chicago rock veterans Urge Overkill. We must admit, we are even more excited about this year’s eclectic mix of live acts as curated by The Empty Bottle including such touted indie acts as Beach Fossils, F’d Up, We Were Promised Jetpacks and Chicago’s metal and dirge-driven Bloodiest.

If rock really isn’t your thing, then walk over to the BassbythePound DJ stage groove to the sounds of over ten dance music DJs like the local hipster nightlife DJ collective, Dark Wave Disco, and beloved Chicago by way of Compton, California, DJ Derrick Carter.

Though the list of bands definitely has us excited, there are also great festival fare opportunities for parents, kids and pet owners with Kid Fest and PUPfest (Protecting Urban Pets). Kid Fest will feature family programming, live kid music, crafts, pony rides, bounce houses and face painting and proceeds will benefit one of our favorite kid friendly spots, the Superior Play Lot Park. We know it’ll be hot, but we definitely plan on dragging the pooch along to cool off in the Suds-for-Strays dog wash. For ten bucks we know it’s worth it to have someone else deal with the doggie bathing process, plus you can’t beat that the proceeds from that will benefit animal-based charities like Alive Rescue and Greyhounds Only.

All this for a $5 donation and we can bring the pup? We’re so there.

West Fest, Saturday July 10 and Sunday July 11, 12 p.m. - 10 p.m., Chicago Ave. between Damen and Wood, $5