Bored this weekend? Best Reggae Festival this weekend in Wilmington DE!!!

http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/life/2003/08/08reggaecelebrate.html

Reggae celebrates life, love and the pursuit of mellowness

By CHRISTOPHER YASIEJKO
Staff reporter
08/08/2003

Bob Marley's brief residency in Wilmington is not a secret. It's a pleasing bit of trivia that contributes to Delawareans' penchant for clinging to all local connections to popular culture.

But the footprint of the Jamaican reggae pioneer did not wash away after his seven-month stay in Wilmington ended in 1966. On Saturday, for the ninth straight year, The Peoples Festival will celebrate Marley. Six bands will pay tribute from 1 to 9 p.m. and Dover's GroundRoot International Players will perform part of a Marley-inspired musical at Tubman-Garrett Riverfront Park.

It isn't the largest of its kind in the nation, but The Peoples Festival is the dominant reggae event in the mid-Atlantic, according to Derrick Parker, who has organized the festival's entertainment for the past six years.

Parker, 42, is a label manager at Ras Records, a Silver Spring, Md.-based company whose clientele, he says, is "98.9 percent reggae." He knows the scene, and while other events are larger - Reggae on the River, for instance, is a 20-year tradition in Piercy, Calif., that draws about 20,000 people - attendance at the Wilmington festival has doubled to more than 5,000 during Parker's time as an organizer.

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Call me - I'll be there all day!!!!

Actually it's Canwest, a Carribean festival but there's bound to be plenty of reggae.

I used to be in a reggae band (keyboards, trombone and shaky things). The beat never gets out of your system.

in rock island, il. this weekend also.large two day fest in the riverfront area.about 10 bands will play fri and sat. i think the crowds average about 7 thousand a night..good crowd - good time.

I would of made plans. Best friend live in Wilmington. I am about 5 hrs. south

DEMMAN