A ‘FAVORITE
FESTIVAL’
B
The Astoria Warrenton Crab, Seafood & Wine Festival offers
food, drink, live music and good company April 22, 23 & 24
Story by JON BRODERICK
Astoria Warrenton
Crab, Seafood &
Wine Festival
Clatsop County Fairgrounds
92937 Walluski Loop Road, Astoria
April 22, 23 & 24
Friday: 4 to 9 p.m.
Saturday: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Sunday: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
astoriacrabfest.com
$10 adult admission
$ 5 children (ages 5 to 12)
Sunday admission is half-off for adults
and free for children and active military
Photo by Don Anderson
Many arts and craft vendors sell their wares at the Crab, Seafood &
Wine Festival.
12 | April 21, 2016 | coastweekend.com
By the end of April on the North Coast,
if the weather isn’t yet reliably beautiful, the
days, at least, are reliably long. Now, with
spring’s incontrovertible and welcome arriv-
al, people from across the 3aci¿ c Northwest
and beyond are coming to celebrate with the
locals at the 34th annual Astoria Warrenton
Crab, Seafood & Wine Festival, taking place
at the Clatsop County Fairgrounds on Friday,
Saturday and Sunday, April 22, 23 and 24.
Is there a better way to celebrate the return
of longer days with friends? It’s hard to name
one. Portland glass artist Joe Bennett, one
of 80 distinctive craft and art vendors at the
festival, is returning for the sixth consecutive
year. “It’s a masterfully run festival,” he says.
“It’s a joy to be here.”
The festival consistently wins Coast
Weekend’s Readers’ Choice Award for Best
Local Festival. Ask any of its nearly 200 ven-
dors or its 15,000 attendees what they like
best about it. Answers are always optimistic
and enthusiastic. “The people,” they say.
Each of the nearly 200 total vendors is jur-
ied into the festival by a discerning committee
led by Kelsey Bilansifer, event coordinator for
the Astoria-Warrenton Area Chamber of Com-
merce, that considers each potential vendor’s
artisan Paci¿ c Northwest cred and appeal.
“The jury works hard to include unique ven-
dors who don’t sell similar products,” says
chamber Marketing Director Regina Willkie.
One of those unique Northwest vendors is
Hood Crest Winery. Winemakers (and blues
recording artists) Patrik and Tess Barr are re-
turning to the Crab Festival from Hood River
Submitted photo
Tess and Patrik Barr, owners of Hood Crest Winery, are returning to the Crab, Seafood & Wine Festival for their second consecutive
year as vendors. Their 2013 grenache and petite syrah won bronze medals in the 2016 festival’s wine competition.
for their second consecutive year. “It’s not
that easy to get accepted into the festival,”
says Patrik. “We were fortunate last year to
participate. We’re trying to grow our brand.
Last year we sold a lot of wine, and we had
a lot of fun.” He’s also looking forward to
enjoying grilled clown bread, that festival fa-
vorite by the Astoria Clowns: a toasted crab
sandwich he describes as “gooey, cheesey,
mayonnaisey and incredible.”
Besides the Astoria Clowns, 15 or so dis-
tinctive local caterers and bene¿ t organi]a-
tions will offer Northwest fare, typical and
unusual, none alike. Get your crab, whole or
half, from the Astoria Rotary Club there.
<ou’ll ¿ nd scores of excellent Northwest
brewers and winemakers to sample at the fes-
tival but only one distiller: Astoria’s own Pilot
House Distilling. “The Crab Festival is our fa-
vorite festival. The organi]ers have been very
good to us,” says co-owner Christina Cary. In
addition to handcrafted distilled spirits, Pilot
House offers its own drinking vinegars, known
as shrubs, with À avors like tomatillo jalapexo
and strawberry balsamic to mix with distilled
spirits or with selt]er. “It changes the whole
dynamic of a cocktail,” Cary assures.
As if the pleasure of good company, food
and drink weren’t enough, the Crab Fes-
tival also features a remarkable variety of
hard-working Northwest bands at its two
stages all weekend long performing music
that fans, no matter their tastes, will ¿ nd both
agreeably familiar and refreshingly eccentric.
Kathy Boyd is bringing her band Phoe-
nix Rising to the festival for their ¿ rst time.
Though bluegrass was born in Kentucky,
Phoenix Rising gives it a distinctive North-
west À avor with original songs like “Scap-
poose Ridge” and “Twelve More Miles to
Clatskanie.” Boyd and the band enjoy play-
ing outside the bluegrass circuit where audi-
ences who may not be familiar with the music
¿ nd themselves tapping their feet to the bass
beat, smiling at the ¿ ddle, guitar and dobro
licks and the tight vocal harmonies. “It’s fun
Photo by Alex Pajunas
Submitted photo
Kathy Boyd and Phoenix Rising will perform Northwest bluegrass music for the fi rst time
at the Crab Festival; hear the group 3:15 to 5 p.m. Saturday on the Exhibit Hall Stage.
music, up-beat and up-lifting even though,”
she happily concedes, “it’s sometimes about
murder and mayhem.” Stop by the Exhibit
Hall stage to hear them Saturday afternoon.
Three for Silver is returning to Astoria,
where the band has become a favorite, to play
its high-energy, gypsy-À avored retro-folk
roots music at the Crab Festival for the ¿ rst
time. “We play full time all over the West
Coast, and we always look forward to coming
to Astoria,” says bassist Lucas Warford. The
group’s unusual music has made enthusiastic
fans up and down the West Coast. “There’s
a vibe to our music that people in seaside
communities respond to. And we pretty much
have the market cornered for whatever it is
that you call what we do.” Catch them Friday
afternoon at the Food Tent stage.
“The American songbook is not dead,”
declares Moses Barrett, lead vocalist and
guitar player with The Junebugs, a tight trio
that takes particular pride in creatively inter-
preting a wide variety of favorite American
songs. With 80 or 90 tunes in its bank and
skills developed from 185 performances last
year, the band excels at playing music the au-
dience wants to hear. “We start with a couple
of tunes from different eras and look around
to see whose head’s bobbing,” says Barrett.
“We write our own songs, too, and we’re real-
ly proud of them, but we also believe that in-
terpreting the American songbook has artistic
validity.” Find them reviving and continuing
the long American house-band tradition Sat-
urday afternoon at the Food Tent stage.
There’s nothing not to like in the Crab
Festival’s musical line-up. Steve Hale calls
his music “blue-eyed-soul-Americana.” The
indie rock band Mbrascatu sings in Italian. Ty-
ler Stenson performs original elegant, rustic,
poetic folk. Castletown plays energetic Celt-
ic folk rock. The duet Sugar Still, blues and
gypsy ja]]. The Carried Away Trio, classic
ja]] standards and blues. Carrie Cunningham
blends Nashville and the Northwest. The Ellen
Whyte Trio rocks R&B. Rocket 3 shreds fe-
male indie-pop. FOG Band rocks classic. The
Astoria High School Ja]] Band bends stan-
dards. Kenny Hein] interprets country hits.
Ryan Stembridge, the tasting room manager at TeSóAria Vineyard &
Winery in Roseburg, sells a bottle of wine at the 2014 festival. The
winery will be attending as a vendor again this year and won four
gold medals, two silver medals and one bronze medal in the 2016
wine competition.
Photo by Don Anderson
Rosemary Siipola of the Willapa Harbor Chamber of Commerce fries fresh Willapa Bay oys-
ters at last year’s Crab, Seafood & Wine Festival.
Submitted photo
The Junebugs, a tight trio that creatively interprets a variety of favorite American songs,
will perform Saturday at the Food Tent stage.
Festivities begin Friday afternoon and
continue through Sunday afternoon at the
Clatsop County Fairgrounds. Parking at the
festival is scarce during peak hours, so con-
sider taking the $3 shuttle from any of several
off-site parking areas and pick-up sites scat-
tered from Fort Stevens to Knappa.
April 21, 2016 | coastweekend.com | 13