Somerville Music Festival Trades Porches For Couches

SOMERVILLE, MA — Earlier this month, Somerville canceled all city-sponsored events through the end of June, an aggressive step in the fight against the coronavirus. The city order included several popular early summer events, like the Fourth of July fireworks and the PorchFest music festival.

The order forced the organizers of PorchFest to get creative – instead of having hundreds of local artists perform on porches throughout the city, they've asked musicians to post prerecorded videos or do a Facebook Live performance May 9. Appropriately, the festival has rebranded itself as CouchFest.

Artists will be asked to select from doing a Facebook Live, Premiere performance – gathering the whole band virtually – or posting an old live video. Performances will take place May 9 during the time slot originally assigned to their zone: west of Willow Ave is "west" and will take place between 12 and 2 p.m.; the area between Willow Ave. and Central St is "central" and will occur between 2 and 4 p.m.; and the area east of Central St is "east" and will be held from 4-6 p.m.

Registration will remain open until May 7. Click here for more information about this year's festival.