Maryland State Fair
Aug. 25-Sept. 5. Maryland State Fairgrounds, 2200 York Rd., Timonium. 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Free-$8. 410-252-0200.
The Maryland State Fair will feature 12 jam-packed days of agriculture exhibits, livestock shows, carnival rides, horse racing, bull riding, and blowout concerts by the likes of pop star Charlie Puth and country singer Jana Kramer. Stand beneath the bright bulbs of the amusement rides, breathe in the comforting smell of fried food, taste the sweet cotton candy that’s spun on-site, hear the reverberating sound of live music from the racetrack, and feel the warmth of your own grip as you wrap your fingers around the metal bars of the giant swing carousel and are whisked away into the hot night air.—MM

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Fluid Movement
Aug. 5-7. Patterson Park, 148 S. Linwood Ave. Fri. 9 p.m., Sat. 7 & 9 p.m., Sun. 5 & 7 p.m. $10. What do glittery swimsuits, safety goggles, and painful middle school memories have in common? They’re all featured in Fluid Movement’s 15th synchronized swimming spectacular, Science Fair!: The Water Ballet. Using eccentric choreography, comedy, and special effects, the award-winning performance troupe recreates a childhood event that most kids (and parents) dread.

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Maryland Latino Fest
Aug 7. Maryland State Fairgrounds, 2200 York Road, Timonium. 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Free-$15. 410-327-6005. This month, follow the sound of Latin beats to the Maryland State Fairgrounds for the fifth annual Maryland Latino Festival. This full-day event celebrates the culture of Baltimore’s growing Hispanic and Latino communities with art, food, drink, live music, entertainment, and area nonprofits. Spend the afternoon sampling everything from piña coladas to traditional Mexican and Salvadoran fare before heading to the main stage to hear popular artists like bachata dance musician Zacarias Ferreira, reggaeton duo Alexis and Fido, and Duranguense group K-Paz De La Sierra.

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Summer of 69: No Apostrophe
Aug 19. Hippodrome Theatre at the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center, 12 N. Eutaw St. 8 p.m. $58-80. 410-837-7400. Get ready Parks and Recreation fans—Ron and Tammy 2 are leaving Pawnee and making their way to Baltimore. As part of their new tour (yes, you read its title correctly), comedic real-life couple Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally take over the Hippodrome stage to share stories and perform innuendo-filled songs, dances, and skits about their marriage. They’ll likely reference some of their well-known characters, like breakfast-loving Ron Swanson or feisty Karen from Will & Grace, so prepare to laugh with the husband-and-wife duo as they reveal details of their 16-year relationship.

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Hot August Music Festival
Aug. 20. Oregon Ridge Park, 13401 Beaver Dam Road, Cockeysville. 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Free-$189. 877-321-3378. Baltimore County’s blues and roots festival returns this month, bringing together a medley of talent for one hot night of unforgettable music. The stacked lineup includes headliners Thievery Corporation, Grateful Dead cover band Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, Americana string bands Railroad Earth and Leftover Salmon, and soul-rockers The Revivalists.

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Pet Sounds
Aug 23. Hippodrome Theatre at the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center, 12 N. Eutaw St. 8 p.m. $68.50-147. 410-837-7400. In 1966, The Beach Boys made Pet Sounds, a luscious concept album that catapulted the band from sunny surf-pop stars to rock-and-roll legends. It is arguably one of the greatest albums of all time, and 50 years later, we still know the words to “God Only Knows” and “Wouldn’t It Be Nice.” This month, for one night only, we can sing along with Brian Wilson and former members of the group in honor of the record’s 50th anniversary. Fingers crossed that they play at least one rendition of “Good Vibrations,” too.

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Bonnie Raitt
Aug. 24. Pier Six Pavilion, 731 Eastern Ave. 6 p.m. $40-85. 410-783-4189. Legendary blues singer Bonnie Raitt makes a triumphant return to Charm City this month with a smooth set of songs from a career spanning 45 years and 17 studio albums. Raitt’s latest album, Dig in Deep, features her heartfelt blend of blues, folk-rock, and Americana, accented by her breathy vocals, tasteful instrumentation, and incomparable slide guitar. Soak up the warm weather, sip a cold beer, and hear hits like “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” “Something to Talk About,” and “Angel From Montgomery.”

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Baltimore Summer Antiques Show
Aug. 25-28. Baltimore Convention Center, 1 W. Pratt St. Times vary. $20. 410-649-7000. Whether you’re searching for the perfect piece of vintage furniture or you just need to escape the August heat, this giant indoor antiques show is a summer must, with more than 400 vendors featuring everything from prized silver and estate jewelry to major works of art.

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Miranda Lambert
Aug. 25. Merriweather Post Pavilion, 10475 Little Patuxent Pkwy., Columbia. 7:30 p.m. $45-125. 410-715-5550. Grammy-winning singer Miranda Lambert is no country music sweetheart. Her fiery lyrics and powerful songs—“Gunpowder & Lead,” “Little Red Wagon,” “Somethin’ Bad”—have made her a female country icon among the ranks of Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn. Watch her rock the Merriweather stage during one of the final stops on her “Keeper of the Flame” tour.

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Maryland Renaissance Festival
Aug. 27-Oct. 23. 1821 Crownsville Road, Annapolis. Times vary. Free-$24. 410-266-7304. On weekends throughout the fall, all the world’s a stage at the 40th Maryland Renaissance Festival. Set in 16th-century England, the fest allows you to put on flower crowns or suits of armor and indulge in the jousting matches, one-pound turkey legs, mugs of mead, and arts and crafts of yesteryear.

Akimbo Dance & Movement Art Festival
Sept. 12. Station North Arts District. 1-6 p.m. Free. This September, Station North will be overrun with a band of artists, but they won’t be wielding paper or paintbrushes. Instead, they’ll be dancing and performing as part of this fourth annual arts festival celebrating creative diversity in Baltimore and beyond. For one afternoon, wander the neighborhood and see performances by 17 city and regional dance companies—including the Baltimore Dance Project, Masala Soul Project, and Full Circle Dance Company—at indoor and outdoor venues like Station North Chicken Box, The Windup Space, and Ynot Lot.

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Diana Ross
Sept. 13. Pier Six Pavilion, 731 Eastern Ave. 6 p.m. $40-100. 410-783-4189. Diana Ross is the O.D.—the original diva—first making her mark as the lead singer of The Supremes some 50 years ago. Her copious love songs and enduring pop hits—“Stop! In The Name of Love,” “Where Did Our Love Go,” “You Can’t Hurry Love,” “I’m Coming Out”—have cemented her legacy as a fearless female force to be reckoned with. This month, catch her in the Inner Harbor for one unforgettable night.

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Baltimore Book Festival
Sept. 25-27. Baltimore Inner Harbor. Fri.-Sun. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Free. 410-752-8632. Now in its 20th year, the Baltimore Book Festival is bigger and better than ever. Over three days, across multiple stages, hundreds of writers will be in attendance for readings, signings, workshops, and discussions. Hear locals Laura Lippman, D. Watkins, and Wes Moore, plus dozens of booksellers, cooking demos, kids projects, and live music.

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Kinky Boots
Sept. 29-Oct. 4. Hippodrome Theatre, 12 N. Eutaw St. Tues.-Fri. 8 p.m., Sat. 2 & 8 p.m., Sun. 1 & 6:30 p.m. $47.50-131. 410-837-7400. In 2013, three decades after the release of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” 1980s pop icon Cyndi Lauper made her Broadway composer debut with Kinky Boots. The smash-hit musical about bright red stilettos shattered box-office records with its warm-hearted, colorful cast and universal tale about overcoming hard times and stereotypes through spirit and strength. Its anthem says it all: “Just be who you want to be. Celebrate your life triumphantly.”

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Hampdenfest
Sept. 19. W. 36th St. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Free.
Hampdenfest is all the free, street-festival fun of HonFest, but without the flamingos and frills. Instead, it’s just simple summertime pleasures—good beer, good music, and good friends. The Avenue will stir with a bevy of Baltimore talent, like indie-pop rockers Raindeer, post-punkers PLRLS, and this year’s headliner, Bosley. Toilet Race pot-peddlers will barrel down Chestnut Avenue, karaoke stars will compete in Hampden Idol, and onlookers will dangle out of colorful row-home windows.

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Baltimore Seafood Festival
Sept. 19. Canton Waterfront Park, 3001 Boston St. 12-7 p.m. Free-$100. As summer nears its end, celebrate the bay’s best at the city’s second annual seafood festival. Dig into Chesapeake cuisine from local eateries like Captain James, Jimmy’s Seafood, and The Local Oyster, and wash it all down with cocktails, wine, and beer. Feel the breeze off the Canton waterfront and groove to funky tunes by the 8 Ohms and Unity Reggae bands.

[Image credits from top: Hank Wang; Pier Six Pavilion; Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts; Matthew Murphy; Russ Bradshaw; Shutterstock.]

It’s been 10 years since indie dream-pop duo Beach House started its journey towards becoming one of Baltimore’s biggest bands. French-born singer/organist Victoria LeGrand and Baltimore native guitarist Alex Scally burst into indie stardom with their last two albums, Teen Dream (2010) and Bloom (2012), and now they’re about to drop the much-anticipated Depression Cherry, out August 28 via Sub Pop Records. We talk to Scally about still loving Baltimore and their upcoming show at Pier Six Pavilion.

You guys just got back from a press tour in Europe. Is coming back to Baltimore still rejuvenating after being on the road?
Yeah, I’m born and raised in Baltimore City and I love Baltimore. I keep expecting the love to go away but it really doesn’t. There’s just something about the way the seasons are here, the people are here.

You’re about to start a pretty extensive tour for Depression Cherry.
We have a lot scheduled because we’ve always loved it. It’s always been fun and we learn a lot from it. I’m expecting to still love it, but it might be a little harder, because of the weird entity of getting old.

You’re playing some pretty amazing venues, too: Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, the Fillmore in San Francisco.
We’ve played a lot of small venues and big venues and middle venues in our 10 years of doing this. We’ve tried to avoid big ones—they don’t lead to very good shows for us. I don’t think we’ve ever done Ryman before and that might be our biggest venue on the tour. We’ve played Fillmore probably five times, but it’s a pretty small place for such a big city.

And then you’ll be at Pier Six for Windjammer on August 29. We’ll be there.
You know, Baltimore is notoriously lacking in mid-sized venues. For one reason or another, whether its location or the way it’s designed, there just isn’t a place in Baltimore that’s 800, 1,100, 1,200 seats that is a place where everybody loves to go and is beautiful and sounds good. Imagine something like the 9:30 Club. Even when we had Sonar, it was one of the worst sounding places in the world, you know? We have The Lyric, but that’s very formal and kind of uptight.

It’s going to be pretty epic—triple headlining with Dan Deacon, Future Islands, and then all the other Baltimore bands. How did the idea come about?
I forget how it started but I think Dan and I were both saying, well, if we all joined forces, maybe we could play somewhere really fun, rather than have to do shows of our own in places we’re not psyched on. Future Islands hasn’t really done a Baltimore show since everything happened with them. I’ve gone to a couple summer shows at Pier Six and it just feels so fun being in the breezy harbor. We were like, shoot, let’s try to do a summer show there. Then we all invited a band and a DJ and the bill was set.

At first, I thought, interesting. Pier Six. I don’t know. It feels like such a big Baltimore venue for you guys but . . .
It’s actually not that big! When I was a kid and I would go there, it always felt so huge, but when I went to see Hall & Oates [last September] or whatever, it didn’t feel that huge. And it’s so cool having water on either side of you. And the way the hill rises up and the wind just blows across. It seems like a killer place to just lie around in the sun and drink beer all day.

And it’s going to be a benefit concert for Believe in Music, the Living Classrooms music education program.
Somewhere along the line, money started being discussed. Not in a negative way, just like, how we should set the ticket price? We saw all these different amounts that could make it sell out and it just started feeling weirder and weirder. Around the same time was when everything was happening surrounding the death of Freddie Gray and we decided this should definitely just be a charity show. So after expenses paid, it’s all for charity. I think our idea was: It should be small enough that the money would go directly into action, as opposed to an established, giant charity, where it would kind of just be another bit on the heap.

What band and DJ did you and Victoria pick for the lineup?
We picked Romantic States. Jim [Triplett] was in a band called Videohippos and this is his new band. We really like his songwriting. It’s just really unpretentious and simple. Their music is really beautifully simple, with just guitar and drums. In an era where everything feels overthought, it’s under-thought, in a good way. And we picked a DJ friend of ours, Big Party, who plays great music. We’ve played with Dan a bunch of times, and we were all on the Round Robin Tour [in 2008]. I would consider all of those guys good friends at this point.

It’s been a decade since you started Beach House. With all the work and travel and acclaim, do you still feel connected to the Baltimore music scene?
I feel really connected. We still have a lot of friends here. I don’t spend as much time out every night, and I might not know as many people every time I go out, but that also might be, like, getting older. Ten years ago, we were out every night of the week. It’s just a different culture being really young. But I still really love Baltimore and feel like a part of it. I think Baltimore is changing. It was changing back then, too. Like everything in reality, it’s always shifting and changing.

What sparked this album? Was it just the right time?
Touring is such a big part of our life because we learn so much. It’s so much of the way we interact with the universe. And then, when touring ends and you get home and you start to write, there’s a natural pace. This time, it took a little bit longer to decompress and take stock of things and feel natural again, and when we did, we began writing. Nothing is pre-imagined. Nothing is conscious.

You recorded and produced in Louisiana, but did you write it here?
We’ve written every song we’ve ever made in Baltimore. We always write at home.

Do you write in your practice space in Fells Point?
Every song comes about differently. Little things start—maybe at sound check, maybe at home on a guitar—and they evolve into something else and grow. We do a lot of jamming. It’s very collaborative. But we take our time with it. Sometimes it happens fast and other times it’s months before a song goes where it’s supposed to. These songs were probably starting around the same time Bloom came out. We didn’t have any time to work on them [before] then. We had burnt the candle on both ends and needed to recover.

Should it be listened to as a whole, as you’ve said in the past?
That’s something we were saying last album that we then realized is so stupid to tell people. I think people should listen to things however they want.

That being said, are there any songs that stand out for you?
Was there one that stands out to you?

I really love how bare bones “10:37” is. It feels like you, but it feels like something completely new, too.
Yeah, I personally think we’re breaking a lot of ground on this record, but we move at such a slow pace, it probably won’t even be noticed. I think every song is special to us for some reason. It’s awesome that you chose that song; someone else might say another. I often feel like a fool when I’m trying to convince someone to like a song I love—just playing it really loud and staring at them like, ‘Do you hear this?!’ And they’re like, ‘I don’t know . . . I don’t know if I’m hearing what you’re hearing . . .’

“Do you feel what I feel?!”
It’s so funny. It’s the ultimate human condition: wanting to know how someone else is feeling and if it’s similar to you.

Read our review of Depression Cherry in the August issue of Baltimore magazine, on newsstands now.

It’s time to put away your sweaters, pull on your jorts, slip your pale feet into some flip-flops, and rejoice: There might be a few more cold spells, but spring has officially sprung. Here are 10 ways to get out of the house, beat the winter blues, and spring back into your pre-summer happy place.

Food & Drink

38TH ANNUAL BALTIMORE FARMERS’ MARKET & BAZAAR
APR. 5: Beneath the Jones Falls Expressway, Holliday and Saratoga Sts. 7 a.m.-12 p.m. Free. 410-752-8632. Every Sunday through December, shop local ingredients, grab some great eats, browse handmade arts and crafts, and catch live music and cooking demos. Don’t miss Blacksauce Kitchen’s biscuit sandwiches or those infamous long-line pickles.

FOOD TRUCK GATHERING AT THE BMI
APR. 17: Baltimore Museum of Industry, 1415 Key Hwy. 5 p.m. Free. 410-960-9908. The Charm City food truck collective is back with the warm weather and setting up shop at the Baltimore Museum of Industry, with live music by Sweet Leda, local booze, and mobile munchies by Gypsy Queen Cafe, Bistro Lunchbox, Kommie Pig, and more.

THE EMPORIYUM
APR. 18-19: H&S Distribution Center, Fleet St. & S. Central Ave. Sat. 11 a.m.-4 p.m., Sun. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. $15-40. 410-752-8632. Back by popular demand, this two-day foodie festival returns to Harbor East with sought-after snacks, sips, and shopping from over 60 vendors, including local favorites like The Local Oyster, Dooby’s, and Woodberry Kitchen, D.C. darlings like Toki Underground and District Doughnut, and much more.

Feel-Good Grooves

HEAVY SEAS ISLAND JAM
APR. 11: Rash Field, 601 Light St. 1-7 p.m. Free-$59. 410-247-7822. Heavy Seas Beer hosts its first-ever music festival with lots of the brand’s own beer, local food vendors, and live music from The Wailers, Pasadena, and The 8 Ohms Band.

WIDESPREAD PANIC
APR. 26: Pier Six Pavilion, 731 Eastern Ave. 7:30 p.m. $52. 410-783-4189. Pier Six’s summer concert season returns with this beloved Georgia jam band performing an outdoor show of funky grooves and good vibes.

Fun & Games

ORIOLES HOME OPENER
APR. 10: Oriole Park at Camden Yards, 333 W. Camden St. 3:05 p.m. 888-848-BIRD. The boys are back! Don your orange, drink a Boh, and watch the O’s kick off another killer season as they take on the Toronto Blue Jays at Camden Yards.

MARYLAND HUNT CUP
APR. 25: Worthington Farms, 2700 Tufton Ave., Reisterstown. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. $40 per car. 410-833-4104. Get dolled up in your best derby attire and bring your tailgate A-game to the 119-year tradition of the Maryland Hunt Cup.

SOLE OF THE CITY 10K
APR. 18: McHenry Row, 1713 Whetstone Way. 9 a.m. $50-75. 410-645-8266. Starting and ending at McHenry Row, hit the streets with this annual run around the city, followed by a post-party at The Greene Turtle in Fells Point.

Festivals

NATIONAL CHERRY BLOSSOM FESTIVAL
TO APR. 12: Washington, D.C. Locations, times, and prices vary. 877-442-5666. This century-old floral festival celebrates the start of spring with events all across the capital. Don’t miss the trees in peak bloom toward the end of the second week.

PRIVATEER FESTIVAL
APR. 18-19: Fells Point Main Street, 1730 Thames St. Sat. 10 a.m.-7 p.m., Sun. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Free. 410-675-8900. Get excited for boat season at the 11th annual Fells Point pirate festival, with history lessons, live music, activities, and a craft and food market.

This past weekend, more than one million visitors graced the Inner Harbor, Fort McHenry, Pier Six Pavilion, and practically anywhere with a waterfront view for Star-Spangled Spectacular, or the bicentennial of our National Anthem.

Whether it was touring the tall ships docked in our harbor, seeing Living History reenactments at Fort McHenry, watching hundreds of soldiers recreate a marching path, or gazing in awe at the U.S. Navy Blue Angels soaring overhead, there were eye-catching spectacles all around town.

We present a photo gallery of some of the people and places that made this weekend something tourism officials called the biggest event Baltimore has ever seen.