No need to travel far for top-rated entertainment. Our local Flagler Auditorium boasts a significant line-up for the month of June.
Schoolhouse Rock Live!
Players from the City Repertory Theatre join forces with the staff of the Flagler Auditorium on Thursday and Friday, June 22 and 23, 2022, to present Schoolhouse Rock Live!
“We’re so excited to be partnering with The Flagler Auditorium to bring this show to the youth of our community. We hope to provide a fun learning experience for the kids, and parents will have a great time remembering the songs they haven’t thought about since their own childhoods,” Beau Wade, CRT assistant director, told Palm Coast magazine.
The jukebox-style musical features a score of 20-plus songs from Schoolhouse Rock!, which is the 1970s television animated musical educational short films played during Saturday morning children’s programming on ABC. Topics covered included lessons in civics, economics, grammar, history, mathematics, and science presented in the format of catchy, easy-to-memorize tunes.
Remember the saddened piece of parchment paper rolled up like a scroll with the moniker, “Bill,” on its chest? He sang, “I’m just a bill, yes, I’m only a bill, and I’m sitting here on Capitol Hill,” as kids across the nation learned how the federal legislative process works.
Who recalls “Interplanet Janet”? Remember, she’s a galaxy girl who took viewers on a tour of the planets? And who can forget “Conjunction Junction” that musical ditty explaining the vital role that words such as “and, but and or” play in “hooking up words and phrases and clauses” as the song goes?
This is a show for all ages to successfully enjoy… together. Grandparents most likely will know the words to the songs and perhaps find themselves inadvertently singing along with fond nostalgia in their voices as younger generations such as grandchildren discover the truth that the older generation learned the same basic educational subjects too.
The plot of the new version centers around Tom, a brand new teacher who is struggling to prepare for his first day on the job. The various characters associated with the lesson-filled songs encourage him by reviewing their specific topic in the musical format. This performance begins at 7 PM both nights.
Winter Dance Party
For one night on Friday, June 17, the Auditorium welcomes summer to the Palm Coast area with the “Winter Dance Party,” tribute to Buddy Holly, an American singer and songwriter who helped pioneer rock-n-roll in the 1950s.
The dance party is a re-creation of the final tour of The Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson), Holly and Ritchie Valens in 1959 when the trio died in a charter airplane crash on Feb. 3. It is the only tribute show officially endorsed by the estates of Holly, Richardson and Valens. The performance lasts more than two hours and features unbridled, high voltage entertainment as the ground-breaking songs of the 50s such as, “Chantilly Lace,” “La Bamba,” “Peggy Sue,” “Rave On,” and “That’ll Be the Day,” are presented. This performance begins at 7 PM.
Ticket to the Moon
“Mr. Blue Sky,” a present-day trio group aptly named for the 1977 hit by “Electric Light Orchestra” presents its tribute to the iconic 1970s English rock band on Saturday, June 25, in conjunction with the Flagler Youth Orchestra.
Rather than focusing on guitar for sound as many 70s rock bands did, the “ELO” emphasized the sound of cellos, horns, string basses, violins and woodwinds. The idea was to pick up where “The Beatles” left off, according to “The Guardian,” a daily British newspaper headquartered in Manchester, England. Use of orchestral instruments for rock music produced a sound unlike anything else available at the time facilitating 13 years of active recording and touring during which more than 50 million records were sold worldwide. Between 1972 and 1986, “ELO” had 27 top 40 songs on the United Kingdom Singles Chart and 15 songs listed in the top 20 charts of the US Billboard Hot 100. This show begins at 7:30 PM.
Road Trip
St. Augustine Amphitheater has performances scheduled for ten days in June. Here are the biggies.
Sheryl Crow and Jason Isbell
Bring your suntan lotion and “Soak Up the Sun,” as you sing along to her 2002 hit that is sure to get the audience out of their seats dancing. Crow has released 10 albums, four compilations and two live albums along with contributing to several film soundtracks. Perhaps the most recognizable of the soundtracks being, “Tomorrow Never Dies,” the theme song for the 1997 James Bond film of the same title. Joining Crow is Jason Isbell, a four-time Grammy award winner guitarist and singer-songwriter. Isbell is a former member of the “Drive-by Truckers,” and went solo in 2007.
This is a two-day gig scheduled for Thursday, June 9 at 6 PM and Friday, June 10 at 6:30 PM.
Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band
This show is rescheduled from June 26, 2020, and June 25, 2021, due to COVID-19 and thus very limited seating remains available. It is currently scheduled for Friday, June 24, at 6 PM.
But if you are lucky enough to still score tickets, you are in for a night of nostalgia as Starr performs anywhere from ten to 12 hits from his years with the “Beatles” and the members of the “All-Starr Band,” which rotates depending on performer availability, present two to three of their top hits. According to a February 7, 2022, article in “Rolling Stone” magazine, the line-up for the 2022 “All-Starr Band” includes Gregg Bissonette, a world class drummer who has played on albums for “ELO,” “Spinal Tap,” “The Mustard Seeds,” and “WaveGroup Sound.
Warren Ham of “Kansas” and “Toto,” Colin Hay of “Men at Work,” Steve Lukather, lead bass guitarist of “Toto,” Hamish Stuart of the “Average White Band,” and Edgar Winter, who played guitar, keyboard, percussion and saxophone as well as sang for “The Edgar Winter Group,” and played with David Lee Roth of “Van Halen.”
—Amy Armstrong
