Earle to headline Village Trip
BY LINCOLN ANDERSON
After a successful inaugural edition,
the Village Trip festival
will be returning this fall for a
second round.
Suzanne Vega was the headliner for
last year’s free concert in Washington
Square Park, the festival’s signature
event.
This year’s headliner is no lesser talent,
another famed singer/songwriter,
none other than Steve Earle.
Earle started out penning songs and
performing in Nashville at age 19. Over
a more than 30-year career, he has
gone on to release 16 studio albums
and rack up three Grammy Awards.
Some of his better-known hits include
“Guitar Town,” “Copperhead Road”
and “Transcendental Blues.” Blending
rock, country and folk, his songs tell
compelling stories, and are driven by
his supple guitar playing.
The Village-based fest will run from
Thurs., Sept. 26, to Sun., Sept. 29,
with the park concert on Sat., Sept. 28,
starting at 5 p.m.
Two other acts will also be on the bill
that evening, including The Tall Pines
with special guests. The Village Trip is
Cagey artist makes a ‘psychic break’
BY BOB KRASNER
Hedy Zhang, a fi ne-art major at
Parsons, started branching out
into performance art last year.
But it wasn’t until a Saturday a couple
Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Steve Earle will perform
at this year’s Village Trip festival concert in Washington Square Park
in early fall.
of weekends ago that she put herself out
into a public space — in a cage. More
specifi cally, a dog crate, in which she
sat for 10 hours in Union Square Park
performing a silent piece called “Self
Imprison.”
The idea, she explained later (she did
COURTESY STEVE EARLE
not speak to anyone except her assistants
while performing) was to make
people aware that they sometimes put
themselves into their own psychological
prisons. By becoming aware of this,
they can begin to break free.
When it was over, she kicked open
the door, breaking it.
“The most diffi cult part of this performance,”
Zhang explained, “was to
get over my own fear and fi nish it — I
didn’t know how people in New York
City would react.”
For announcements of Zhang’s
upcoming performances, check @
hedyyyyyyyyyy on Instagram.
not ready to announce the guests yet.
The Washington Square concert will
be just one of the music events during
this year’s festival, which will also feature
panel discussions on social justice,
a program for kids held at LREI school,
book and author events, and classical
music.
Venues will include The Bitter End,
like last year, plus Joe’s Pub. More details
about the events will be forthcoming.
Liz Thomson is the Village Trip’s
founder. A Brit with a deep love for
everything Greenwich Village, she felt
the neighborhood lacked a proper festival
to celebrate its special history and
abiding famed creative spirit.
“I’m thrilled that Steve Earle is headlining
‘Bringing It All Back Home to
Washington Square,’ our free concert
in the park that is the focal point of
The Village Trip,” Thomson told this
paper. “He is a wonderful performer
whose songs speak to our times. And
of course he has an album titled ‘Washington
Square Serenade.’ Our second
festival is off to a great start.”
PHOTO BY BOB KRASNER
Performance artist Hedy Zhang in Union Square Park on June 15.
PHOTO BY BOB KRASNER
Zhang said she had to overcome
her fears to do the cage project.
Schneps Media TVG June 27, 2019 21