Iconic Bay Area bluegrass and Americana festival Hardly Strictly Bluegrass (HSB) has announced a live concert with legendary East LA rockers Los Lobos, which will stream live on Sunday, July 25, at 4 pm PST. The concert will be available for fans to watch on HSB’s Facebook, YouTube, Twitch and Nugs.tv pages, as well as HardlyStrictlyBluegrass.com.
According to a press release, the broadcast will be hosted by HSB’s Artist Relations Manager Bonnie Simmons and include a Q&A with Los Lobos as the band shares their favorite memories from playing the festival while taking live questions from fans. To participate in the live portion of the show, fans can sign up online and will then be emailed a Zoom link to join the event on the morning of July 25.
Simmons and Los Lobos will also unveil a special announcement around what the festival has planned for fans and the San Fransisco music community in early October, when the festival takes place each year. The Grammy-award winning band have a storied history with HSB, playing now-legendary shows at the festival in 2007, 2013, 2015 and 2018.
“After months of lockdown, Los Lobos is honored and happy to report we will be doing our first show all together again for our friends at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass,” says keyboardist/bassist Steve Berlin. “We have a special relationship with HSB going back decades and many epic shows, so we are really looking forward to getting back on stage together and ushering in the festival’s 20th anniversary.”
HSB says safety has remained a top priority throughout the planning of the live stream show, and they have “developed a strict protocol for artists and crews working on the event observing the social distancing guidelines set forth by the Center for Disease Control.”
Found in 2001 by Warren Hellman, the free outdoor festival attracts hundreds of thousands of fans annually in San Francisco’s historic Golden Gate Park–without any commercial sponsors or advertisers. The famed fest is also the marquee event for The Hellman Foundation, which supports Bay Area organizations and initiatives emphasizing social inclusion, education, youth development, and health and basic needs programs.