Many musical choices at this year's Last Fling
As entertainment chairman of this weekend's Last Fling festival in downtown Naperville, John Trojanowski knows he's going to have some tough choices when it comes to which concerts to see.
"I basically painted myself in a corner," Trojanowski says.
The challenge, he says, is that a lot of his favorite musical acts are performing at the same time and the same day on either the fest's Main Stage or the Entertainment Stage.
The thousands of fans who flock to Last Fling will have the chance to hear national headliners, cover bands and local musicians who will take the stages from Friday through Monday.
Members of the Naperville Jaycees, who organize the annual end-of-summer bash, put out a notice on their website last November inviting Chicago-area bands to apply for one of 16 available slots. The group received 325 applications.
"We're basically trying to change up the acts each year here," Trojanowski said.
Last year, organizers focused on having bands on the Entertainment Stage cover music of all genres from the past 50 years.
"We went from '50s music and worked our way up to today's genre," Trojanowski said.
This year, he says, organizers are looking to recreate "some of the best music the entertainment industry has to offer."
Main Stage admission on Friday is free, with bands such as Foreigner's Journey.
For bands like Rusted Root and Everclear, admission will be $35 Saturday and Sunday, with Jamey Johnson, former "The Voice" contestant Adam Wakefield, and Hillbilly Rockstarz onstage for $30 during Monday's "We Love Our Country" day.
"We Love Our Country Day" goes back four or five years and started when organizers wanted to branch out into a different genre. Though Trojanowski wouldn't necessarily call Naperville itself a huge country music demographic, he has seen that in surrounding areas there are a number of country fans.
On the Entertainment Stage, Billy Elton, (a cover band playing the music of Billy Joel and Elton John), Heart to Heartbreaker, and Downpour are a few of the 16 bands slated to perform.
Admission to the Entertainment Stage is free throughout the festival.
In addition to the professional musicians, a "Singing at the Fling" contest will give residents the chance to show off their vocals in an atmosphere like "American Idol" or "America's Got Talent" on Saturday and Sunday. Finalists will get to sing in front of everyone on the Main Stage.
"It gives them a hint of what it's like to be a star on a large stage," Trojanowski said.