Five years ago, a group of friends held a music festival in their backyard in Lexington. Most of the bands performing were metal and hard core bands. Ever since (excluding one year), the Mansfield Music Festival has evolved and grown. New for this year is the inclusion of all genres from the greater Mansfield area.
“I would like to see more support for a wide range of genres,” said event coordinator Austin Moore.
The festival will take place across a three-day span starting Thursday, June 26 at Chris’s Bar & Grill on West Fourth Street, ending on Saturday. Currently the Facebook page shows 29 bands lined up to play and close to 120 individuals have RSVP’d. Chris’s Cafe will have two stages set up – one outside on the patio area, and one inside, which will serve as the “main stage.”
Some familiar local names have signed up this year: Narrow/Arrow, The Northern Junkyard Orchestra, Mahoney & the Pliers, Divebomb, The Infantry, Vasudeva, Tv Movie and many more. The full lineup is in the images on the left column.
The vision for a music festival stems for a deep desire to keep the music scene in the Mansfield area alive. Lead singer for local band Tv Movie James Amos shares this vision. Amos has also been instrumental in planning for the festival.
“I love, live and breath for music myself and I would love to see the community grow into an exciting live music enriched culture like other cities such as Austin, Texas, where I used to live,” said Amos via a web interview.
“I believe the more support that is received, the talent we have in the area will be able to thrive more and more. In the future, I’d love to have people from the outside area say, ‘Hey, you should check what they are doing in Mansfield, lots of good things are going on there for music!’,” he added.
The festival will take place at Chris’s Bar & Grill on 1111 W. Fourth St. in Mansfield for three days starting June 26 and ending on June 28. Tickets may be purchased for a three-day package, or individually starting at $2 and going up to $5 per ticket.
For more information regarding the music festival, visit their Facebook page.
