The Tri-Cities runs on free outdoor music in June, and this is the fortnight the machine gets fully up to speed. You could see live music five nights a week without opening your wallet — and then the Walla Walla Chamber Music Festival gives you a very good reason to open it anyway.
The free series, by day of week
Thursdays and Fridays belong to John Dam Plaza in Richland: Groove Principal kicks it off on the 11th, the Live@5 series holds Fridays, and Stompin' Ground lands on the 18th. Wednesdays move to the water — the Clover Island Concert Series runs free community shows with Joel Gibson Jr. on the 17th and Dr. Rock & The Sturgeons on the 24th. And on Friday the 12th, Sacajawea Historical State Park hosts the Sacajawea Bluegrass Festival, free, starting at noon — bring the chair you keep in the trunk for exactly this.
Walla Walla gets serious
The Walla Walla Chamber Music Festival spends two weeks treating wineries as concert halls. Pepper Bridge hosts Portrait of an Artist with Tracy Doyle on the 11th and a Bartók piano quintet on the 12th; the Gesa Power House Theatre stages By Moonlight on Saturday the 13th; brass quartet The Westerlies play The Walls Vineyards on the 14th; and the Collage Nights at Abeja Winery run the 15th and 16th. Walla Walla also throws its Wiener Weekend the same days, because a town can be two things at once.
One very full mid-June Saturday and Sunday
Saturday the 13th stacks up: the Richland Uptown Art Walk in the morning, then two competing candlelit tributes that evening — ABBA at the Uptown Theatre and Fleetwood Mac at the REACH Museum. Sunday the 14th is Tri-Cities Pride at Memorial Park, free, with the official drag after-party at Azucar that night.
Theater people are spoiled right now
Three community stages run at once: the Richland Players' Arsenic and Old Lace, the Little Theatre of Walla Walla's The Odd Couple (female version), and Private Lives at The Mystery Theatre. Gesa Power House adds All My Sons on the 17th, and Kamiakin High School stages My Fair Lady on the 19th.
The reliable rooms
The Emerald of Siam remains the hardest-working stage in Richland — harpist Chelsea Spence on the 12th, open mic Mondays, the Stephanie Steele Quintet on the 24th. Wineries and breweries fill the rest: Goose Ridge, Taverna Tagaris, Tranche, Longship Cellars, Rattlesnake Mountain Brewing. And on Saturday the 20th, the HAPO Center goes big with El Coyote y Chuy Lizarraga. The Pasco Farmers Market at Peanuts Park runs Saturday mornings, free, as ever.