Kicking off with a swanky media preview party this evening, the area surrounding the "superblock" at Main and McGowen should be a beehive of activity the next 48 hours.

Tonight Lonesome Onry and Mean will be partying in the Mercedes Benz VIP area and getting a first look at the set-up for the inaugural Best of Houston® BestFest. When we drove by last night, green fencing had been put up, essentially blocking the view from the street, but the main stage towered above the scene like some mechanical monster in a sci-fi flick.

Afterwards the Rocks Off team retired to Leon's Lounge half a block away for a coverage strategy session. (Lone Star is one of the best sources of inspiration for inspired music writing we know of.) Just as we arrived, local disc jockey legends Ronnie Renfrow and Tom Richards took over the turntables for a practice session for their Celebrity Disc Jockey appearance tonight.

These days Renfrow and Richards do the Classic Cool podcast, but they've also worked at half the radio stations in Houston in their lives. (Renfrow is himself a Best of Houston® winner, in 2006 for "Best AM Radio Personality.") In fact, LOM got a little teary-eyed when we saw Richards working the tables at Leon's last night, telling our group how many songs we first heard through Richards back in the day.

We were expecting their usual Sinatra/Count Basie-centric mix, but to our surprise they were mainly working their classic-rock chops during the practice session we heard. And it was solid, as solid as the blend of national headliners and local aces who will make this one of the biggest bang-for-the-buck music events ever.

Of course it is highly likely that numerous Rock Offers and certainly others attending the BestFest pre-party will be dropping by Leon's afterwards before tucking themselves in for two monumental days of the festival.