The April Fool’s Festival in Tryon Saturday, April 4 will feature the live music of a group of well-known local performers.

Dog Whistle is a local Polk County band that lends itself to the Americana and country western genres of music, blending covers with strong original material.  The band features Scott Allen (Seconds Flat) on guitar, Stan Halbkat (Trophy Huzbands) playing bass, Lee Holroyd (Anti-Bodies and Trophy Huzbands) on drums and special guest Mike Bagwell (Bad Popes and many others) on steel guitar.

The band will play its first set around 2 p.m., after the parade and outhouse races are completed. They’ll take a break for the Trashion Show, around 3 p.m. and then return to entertain the spring revelers from 4-6 p.m.

Tryon’s April Fool’s Festival will kick off around noon with a parade, followed by an outhouse race, musical entertainment and a scavenger hunt.

All the fun started 10 years ago when Tryon’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade kept getting knocked out by ice storms and rain. The late Kathleen Carson, a Tryon Downtown Development Association board member, decided a little bit of foolishness around April 1 might make more sense.

“It was amazingly successful the first year and seems to have continued to bloom and grow each year,” says one of the original festival organizers, Jody Vermont. “After this long winter of cold and gray, it will be a perfect time to stretch our senses of humor and lose our inhibitions!”

For more information, call Bill Crowell at 828-859-9278 or search Facebook for TryonFoolsFest.

-Submitted by Jeff Byrd

 

PHOTO: Dog Whistle members Scott Allen on guitar (left) and Stan Halbkat on bass. (Photo by Kirk Gollwitzer