You Oughta Know About These Shows More Concerts Than Ever Are On Tap This Summer

Sun., May 26, 1996

By Jim Kershner jimkershner@comcast.net

Can’t find a concert to attend this summer?

Maybe you should make a more concerted, pardon the expression, effort.

The summer concert scene in the Inland Northwest has undergone some significant changes this year, but the gist is: There are more concerts and more concert venues than ever.

The Gorge has already announced 16 summer concerts, with more being added every week.

The Festival at Sandpoint has cut back due to budget problems, but still plans 11 mainstage concerts.

Riverfront Park in Spokane has four big outdoor shows scheduled, up from two last year.

Silver Mountain has six concerts scheduled in its high-altitude amphitheater.

A new outdoor country festival, the LeCocq Ranch Festival, is coming to Colville.

The new Spokane Arena has three big-name acts booked this summer, with the possibility of more to come.

Playfair Race Track plans a series of concerts, to be announced.

That’s more than 40 concerts featuring national acts this summer, which doesn’t even count the various shows scheduled at the smaller indoor venues, such as The Met, the Masonic Temple, the Davenport Hotel and the Panida in Sandpoint.

For the monster concert draws, The Gorge continues to be the spot. This year’s lineup features the big-name dinosaurs (Steely Dan and Steve Miller, to name two) as well as newer names like Alanis Morissette and Everclear.

But this summer, the Spokane Arena has picked off some big names, too. The biggest is Neil Diamond, whose Aug. 3 show sold out almost instantly. Dwight Yoakam also plays the Arena, on June 6.

But the James Taylor date on Sept. 8 at the Arena has broader implications for the future. For the first time, an act booked at The Gorge (Sept. 7) will double up at the Arena, thus giving Taylor the opportunity to cover the region more thoroughly, and sparing Spokanites the two-plus hour drive to George, Wash.

The summer’s biggest question mark was the Festival at Sandpoint, which was pummeled by bad news over the off-season. Yet the festival has come through with a season just slightly less ambitious than previous years. The number of Spokane Symphony concerts has been cut from four to three, and the number of mainstage concerts will go from 15 to 11. And the tenor of those acts will be decidedly more mellow (Lou Rawls and Neil Sedaka, for instance) in order to be more sensitive to neighbors’ complaints. Yet for 20 days in late summer, the festival will continue to be a major cultural draw in North Idaho.

Another question mark: Would Silver Mountain, under new ownership, continue to offer concerts under the stars in its alpine amphitheater?

Yes, it will. This year’s lineup follows in the tradition of past seasons, with name country acts (Patty Loveless and Merle Haggard) and quality blues and rock (the Robert Cray Band). The only major difference this year is a value-added concept: A ticket stub gets you a free ride on the Silver Mountain gondola on any other day of the summer. The ticket price already includes the gondola ride on the day of the concert.

And one more venue has also risen from the ashes. Playfair, the Spokane horse track which has undergone a change of ownership, will bring back its popular outdoor concert season this summer, although the lineup has not yet been nailed down.

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