Under a small white canopy in Peoples Park, Ben Thompson prepared his violin for an old-time music concert he was going to give to anyone who happened to be walking down Kirkwood Avenue.
Thompson, a fiddle player in The New Hoosier Broadcasters traditional string band, was asked to play in the park as part of Bloomington Parks and Recreation’s concert series.
The Peoples Park Concerts are a weekly free music series where local Bloomington musicians can come and perform their tunes. Starting at 4:30 p.m., people going home from work or looking for dinner are encouraged to stop by and stay for a while, according to Visit Bloomington’s website.
“We’ve been playing since 2013 around here,” Thompson said. “We’ve played a lot of shows at Players Pub and all over around here, we’ve done a lot of square dances and performances, stuff like that.”
More clouds started to cover up the already-gray sky, and it appeared as if it was going to rain. Thompson said this was his first time performing at Peoples Park. Although he was playing solo for this concert, he said his band as a whole plays a lot of traditional tunes, ballads and folk songs.
“Really we just want to support local artists and give them an opportunity to perform in public spaces and also just bring something into our public parks to utilize them in a different way,” said Crystal Ritter, the community events coordinator for Bloomington Parks and Recreation.
Thompson began the concert with a Greek medley, which he later told the small audience was the type of tune that was brought over by migrant workers from Greece at the turn of the century. As he continued to sing and play on his fiddle, a few people walked into the park carrying ice cream and sat at the benches, enjoying the fast and heavy strokes of Thompson’s bow on his fiddle strings.
“This is nice, this is great,” said Ed Robbins, a resident of Bloomington. “I know the style, and a long time ago when I was in college we had a folk-song club, old Irish melodies and so forth.”
As it began to drizzle, Thompson called out the name of his next song “Open the Gate” and almost immediately the rain began to get heavier. Without stopping, Thompson kept playing into his next tune “Indian Ate the Woodchuck,” saying that the song was long enough to be interesting but short enough to get the point across.
Bloomington Parks and Recreation’s concert series will continue until Sept. 4 with the final concert from Curtis and Janiece, a duo-jazz-pop group, according to the Peoples Park Concert Series Facebook page.
