The Main Event

While the nearby Super Bash may have the quantity, this multiday downtown mega-getdown will have the quality, and what's more, it's all absolutely free. Sure, none of the national names on this one are as big as the Red Rocker's, but when you've got Charlie Robison, Los Lobos, Nathan and the Zydeco Cha-Cha's, the Neville Brothers, Flaco Jimenez, Marcia Ball and Delbert McClinton, it only goes to show that merit seldom equals notoriety. (And arguably K.C. & the Sunshine Band is just as famous as Hagar, but that just goes to prove my point.) Austin's amazingly good flamenco-blues-rock group Del Castillo is also slated to perform, and we don't call many flamenco-blues-rock groups amazingly good. Then there are locals like John Evans, Step Rideau, Fito Olivares and Grady Gaines... As the wizened rednecks on the Old Milwaukee commercials used to say, "It don't git any better n'at." A full performance schedule is available at www.click2houston.com/sports/2761303/detail.html