The 15th annual American Folk Festival on the Bangor Waterfront, set for Aug. 23-25, will feature several new genres for the event, including a surf rock band that wears Mexican wrestling masks during their performances.
The first five acts for this year’s festival were announced this week, offering up the usual diverse array of genres. The five performers include:
Los Straitjackets, a Nashville-based surf rock five piece. Since 1994, the band has performed instrumental surf rock while wearing Mexican wrestling masks, aka Lucha Libre masks. The band also features dancers, guest singers and other theatrical elements during its live performances. The band has performed in Maine numerous times over the years.
The Campbell Brothers, a New York-based gospel band that plays a style of religious music called “sacred steel.” Pedal steel player Chuck Campbell has for more than 20 years led his band of brothers, which performed in Bangor in 2004 during the National Folk Festival, the precursor to the American Folk Festival.
Grupo Cimarron, a Grammy-nominated Colombian band that performs joropo, a style of Latin dance music from Columbia and Venezuela that weaves in African and Indigenous musical elements.
Les Tireux d’Roches, a Quebecois band that draws from both traditional French and Quebecois music while playing a wide array of instruments.
The Fitzgeralds, a Canadian Celtic fiddle group that also performs step dancing.
More 2019 AFF performers will be announced in the coming weeks. The annual Color Bangor Fun Run, a road race that benefits the AFF in which volunteers throw colored powder at participants, is set for Saturday, May 11.
This article originally appeared on www.bangordailynews.com.
