Out and About in Rockridge
on October 8, 2013
Last Sunday, Rockridge held its 8th annual Out and About street festival. Ten blocks of College Ave. from Alcatraz Ave. to Kale St. were cleared of car traffic to make way for food stalls, live bands, arts and craft tents, and a rock climbing wall. The wide range of activities and entertainment attracted an equally diverse crowd. As kids got their hands on paint and brushes at the arts and crafts tent hosted by Market Hall, adults sampled sangria flavors from Bourbon and Beef’s beverage tent.
Three hundred organizations, businesses, and musicians participated in this year’s event. There were more than a dozen stages set up along the street, all of which were scheduled back-to-back from noon until six with cooking demonstrations and musical performances, including the rhythm and blues group This Old Band, the Berkeley High Jazz Band, and CelloJoe, a hip-hop meets classical solo musician.
Many of the reported twelve thousand attendees were Rockridge residents, or from surrounding neighborhoods. Karen Black, a local mom, has been going to the event since it started. “I look forward to this event every year,” she said.
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- Out and About, the annual Rockridge street fair, was chock-full of attractions for kids, including craft tables, a climbing wall, circus performances, and face painting. There was an equally wide range of activities for parents, including live music and cooking demonstrations.
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- Bill Muccular (center), Tim Nightway (left), and Joe Rizzo (right) from This Old Band were the first to play in a several band lineup.
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- Father and son, James and Conor Doenlan, play a game of chess. The Berkeley Chess School provided ten chess sets and a life-size chess board.
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- Meya Jones and her coworkers from Bourbon and Beef, a restaurant in Rockridge, serve watermelon mojitos and red and white sangria.
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- A youth circus performer from the Kinetic Arts Center uses a curtain to do her tricks for onlookers.
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- Linda Silkorski runs the Cookbook Exchange tent put on by Market Hall, a European style market based in Rockridge. The proceeds benefit the Rockridge Public Library.
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- Jayda Shimm plays on a drum set provided by Jon’s School of Music.
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- Owen Corbett, a Rockridge native, sat among a few dozen of his peers and painted a pumpkin.
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- Sara Ballard, a chef from Southie & Wood Tavern, hosted the first of several cooking demonstrations on the Market Hall Chef Stage.
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- People of all ages took advantage of the twenty-four-foot climbing wall next to Rockridge BART Station. Climb On, a climbing wall rental company, provided the instructors and wall for Out and About.
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- The Zydeco Flames plays Cajun style music under the shade of the highway underpass to seventy plus onlookers and dancers.
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