Eclectic Crowd Enjoys Gospel Jamboree While Competing With Nearby Pig Out, It Raises Money To Buy Food For The Needy
The music was all twangy steel guitars one set, buzz saw electric guitars the next.
Folks in the crowd wore cowboy hats, baseball caps and biker bandannas. Some were high-school kids. Others were going gray.
Monday’s seventh-annual Spokane Gospel Jamboree had something for just about everybody - in the hopes that everybody would have something to give back.
Money to buy food for the hungry.
“Out there, all those people are pigging out in the park,” organizer David Tucker boomed between acts, pointing toward Riverfront Park’s west side. “While over there, on the other side, there are people digging through garbage cans.”
Competition from nearby Pig Out in the Park was tough.
The crowd in Riverfront Park’s Lilac Bowl wasn’t huge; it varied from a couple of dozen to a couple of hundred. The task, though, was formidable. Tucker was trying to save The Meeting Place, a Hillyard outreach center that has provided 10,000 meals since it opened two years ago.
Tucker said the center had to move out of its building Sunday because of a lack of money.
“We’re feeding 500 a week, … but without any funds, we can’t keep all five of them running,” he said, referring to The Meeting Place and four other outreach centers that provide food through the Spokane Food Share program.
There was no admission charge for Monday’s jamboree. Instead, folks were asked to donate. “It’s up to the compassion of people,” Tucker said.
Early in the day, people retreated from the hot sun by camping out under the ring of trees encircling the bowl.
Meanwhile, Cathy Whallon, a pint-sized woman with a 10-gallon voice, crooned country tunes. She tapped her boots to the taped fiddle accompaniment, her belt buckle flashing in the sun. “There is vic-try for the Christian” went one song, and then “Mama smiles and Daddy cries, miracles before your eyes.”
West of the stage, motorcycles multiplied.
“Look at all those scooters,” Tucker piped through the loudspeakers. “And they all belong to Jesus.”
Half belonged to the Inland Northwest Victory Riders, the local chapter of the Christian Motorcyclists Association. They brought the Hondas.
“We travel the highways and byways, reaching those who’d never come near a church,” president Merle Clawson said from beneath his red, white and blue “Ride for the Son” cap. The 61-year-old has been riding for 40 years.
The other guys, the Soul Patrol, look like they might be more concerned with probation than salvation. But president Tim Olson - earrings, tattoos, leather vest and all - calls his Harley “The Pulpit.”
For both groups, the standard greeting was “Are you a Christian?” followed by “Do you have a bike?” Then Olson and Clawson started into their oft-traded Honda vs. Harley banter.
Most passing wheels, though, were human-powered. Bicyclists and in-line skaters constantly cruised down the path past the main stage. Some stopped. By midafternoon, the crowd had grown to a couple of hundred.
Country gave way to garage rock ‘n’ roll as Greg Beumer & The Boyz took the stage. The act is made up of a graying dad on guitar and vocals and three teenage boys. Two are his sons.
Kristin Kacalek and Heather Leeming, both 18, soaked up the distortion with smiles. They know The Boyz.
“They’re pretty good,” Kacalek said.
George and Donna Comstock, both fiftysomethings, sat in lawn chairs in the shade. This was a little too hip for George, a traditionalhymn type. Donna, though, said she liked the feedback that made “Sing Hallelujah to the Lord” sound more like “Purple Haze.”
But both had a good time. “We enjoy this,” George Comstock said. “It’s Labor Day, it’s entertainment and it’s music with a message. It appeals to a lot of people.”
And, it’s hoped, helped a lot, too.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo