Free music after work? Yes, please!

In some ways, "Alive After Five" was ahead of its time.

From 1986 to the middle part of the last decade, this after-work concert series took place in downtown Raleigh and featured, for the most part, local bands playing cover songs on Thursday evenings in the summer.  You could even (hooray!) bring your own beer.

The demolition of the Fayetteville Street pedestrian mall and the advent of Downtown Live (which featured huge headliners for free on Saturdays in the Summer) spelled the end of "Alive After Five".   In many respects, that was too bad...because a Thursday after-work concert series is a very good thing.

Ironically, Raleigh had an after-work concert series before downtown Raleigh was cool.  Progress Energy and RBC Bank had not built their headquarters downtown.  Restaurants like The Oxford, Buku, and Sono didn't exist.  ABC-11 hadn't created their super-cool "window on the world" studio on Fayetteville Street.  City Plaza at the end of Fayetteville Street wasn't hosting events like Winterfest and Raleigh Wide Open.  Heck, you couldn't even drive a car down Fayetteville Street.

The transformation of downtown Raleigh didn't happen overnight, but it's clear that a new after-work concert series befitting of the new City of Oaks was due, and thus the creation of "Oak City 7".

Oak City 7 is a Thursday after-work summertime concert series that begins May 31st and takes place over seven Thursdays.  It is reflective of how our area has changed - stellar local and regional bands playing Folk, Americana, and Bluegrass will provide the entertainment.  A wide selection of local and craft beers will be available (there were no local or craft beers in these here parts until the 2005 repeal of a law that "capped" alcohol content of beers in NC at 6%.)  It will take place over a two-block span of Fayetteville Street, surrounded by a vibrant bar and restaurant scene.

There are lots of reasons to be proud of where we live...get ready for another one.

Foster
Radio 96.1