Rock the Arts makes a splash

By RICHARD L. BOCCIA

The festival rocked in the rain and sun.

YOUNGSTOWN — Through torrents of rain, a band kept playing, the fans kept listening, and Rock the Arts rocked on.

The rain didn’t stop the fun at the arts and music festival on the grassy area in front of Chevrolet Centre on Saturday. Pam and Caty Secui washed down a beer inside nearby Caf Cimmento while the rain soaked downtown for about a half-hour.

“It was just one drink’s worth,” said Pam, who came from Poland with her daughter Caty.

The band 5 Elements got wet onstage, and it wasn’t from beer.

Though his amp cut out, Josh Warnack and the other band members played on.

“People were loving it,” he said as he packed away the band’s damp equipment at the edge of a flooded parking lot.

Jim Logan, who does vocals and turntable for the band, called the fans “troupers” for outlasting the weather with them.

November Loop was slated to play next, but wet equipment halted the stage show for an hour. Drummer Matt Leicht’s wife and kids climbed into the back of their sport-utility vehicle for shelter as he held out hope the show would go on for his band.

“I’ve never even played outdoors. I haven’t played wet, either, so I guess I’m killing two birds with one stone,” Leicht said.

Rain or shine, John Hunter and Daniel White tossed a disc and kicked a beanbag back and forth on the grass.

“Just let it rain on you,” Hunter said. He was impressed that the band played on. “They really care. They like their fans — they’re doing it for the community.”

Some more water-sensitive arts took a break during the bad weather. The drum circle stopped playing, and Pat Evans of Rhythms of Ecstasy saved her 40 drums, worth $75 to $450 each, from the water.

“It would ruin them,” Evans said, so when the circle resumed, they covered the drums with garbage bags to keep them safe from water.

Jeff Puccini of Boardman was glad to be an oil painter and not a watercolor artist when the rain came down.

“They should be all right,” he said, referring to the paintings he stowed in a box under the large artists’ tent. Still, he was disappointed to see the clouds roll in.

“It barely got started,” he said of the festival. The last time he did an outdoor show, he vowed it would be the last. Have his feelings changed about subjecting his work to the weather?

“I really don’t like outdoor shows,” he said.

Photographer Tony Nicholas of the West Side was unfazed, however. He pulled his featured piece of art, a collage of dirt, red and black paint, and images of Kelly Pavlik inside the tent, but left it uncovered.

“It’s so sealed with polyurethane, you can’t hurt it,” said Nicholas of his work.

Artist Jeff Vargo of Gabrielle’s Artistic Glass Engraving in Campbell was one step ahead of the rain with art that’s made to get wet.

“I’m proving they’re dishwater safe,” said Vargo as he wiped engraved dishes.

“They said 30 percent chance, so we took our chance,” he said, pointing out that vendors paid in advance to show at the festival. He was hopeful that the Mahoning Valley Thunder arena football game would draw patrons back after the rain.

Brooke Slanina, president of the board at the Oakland Center for the Arts, was master of ceremonies for the evening, and determined to make the event work. She estimated 750 to 1,000 people passing through the event.

“Everything got rearranged and pushed onto one stage, but pretty much everything survived,” she said.

The festival ran from 3 to 11 p.m. It was the first fundraiser of Art Youngstown, an organization that formed a year ago to raise the profile of visual art in the Mahoning Valley. The Royal Oaks Bar and Grill and the city of Youngstown also sponsored the event.

rboccia@vindy.com