Backstage – a band plays in St. Joseph during the Venetian Festival

I took this last summer during St. Joseph’s annual Venetian Festival. The festival includes rides, music, a regatta, and fireworks. Just south of the St. Joseph river along the lake is called “Silver Beach”, which is where most of the Venetian festivities took place. I went down there one night and found what felt like martial law. There were police in cars, on foot, riding four wheelers, on horseback, in boats–there must have been hundreds. It was crazy. I took some pictures of the Ferris Wheel and then got out of there before the riot that the police ostensibly thought imminent, broke out. There wasn’t actually a riot.

On the evening there were fireworks I setup my tripod on the north side of the river (blue circle below). They launch the rockets off from the south pier over Lake Michigan. While I was impatiently awaiting the fireworks, I took a few snaps of the band playing in a pavilion (circled in red). They had fog machines and lights and the whole bit and I think it makes for an interesting view. The music, like all rock concerts, was excessively loud, so this was about as close as I wanted to be anyway.

I was camped out on the far side of the river	You can see the drummer rocking out on his set