Jersey Shore Magazine

J e r s e y s h o r e • S P R I N G 2 0 2 0 8 Asbury Park Begins and Ends the Summer BEACHCOMBER The 2020 Asbury Park Music + Film Festival Celebrating the Collaboration of Music and Cinema Thursday, April 23 - Sunday, April 26, 2020 " L e t u s t ak e a j o u r n e y do w n t h e S h ore t o s ee w h a t w e c a n f i n d… " The Paramount Theatre, on the Asbury Park boardwalk, is the primary venue for events at the festival. W ith music as its backbone since the 1900s, Asbury Park has a rhythm like no other Jersey Shore town. It should come as no surprise that the city has hosted a celebration since 2015 as unique as itself, one that commemorates music's inte- gral role in cinema: the Asbury Park Music + Film Festival (APMFF). The 2020 APMFF will usher in the Jersey Shore festival season on April 23 through April 26 as the celebra- tion of screen and stage continues its mission of benefiting thousands of children from Asbury Park and the surrounding communities by sup- porting music and arts education. Over its four-day schedule, the APMFF attracts a diverse audience from both the tri-state region and world for its panel discussions, musical performances, and film screenings. Entertainment legends including hometown favorites Danny DeVito and Bruce Springsteen, along with Wyclef Jean, Don Cheadle, and David Crosby, among others, have appeared at the festival since its inception, and this year's headlin- ers are sure to leave their individual imprint along the Jersey Shore as they pay tribute to the partnership between music and film. "Over the last five years, the APMFF has produced some of the most memorable events to take place on both stage and screen in the history of the city," said Tom Bernard, Co-Chair of the APMFF and Co-President of Sony Pictures Classics. "Through these iconic moments, the festival has remained steadfast in the commitment to raise funding for the underserved children of Asbury Park and surrounding communities. We are devoted to providing local youth the necessary resources in order to pursue their dreams and flourish in both music and the arts." On Thursday, April 23, Grammy and Oscar-winning singer/songwriter and activist Melissa Etheridge will kick off this year's festival with a per- formance at Paramount Theatre as a part of her tour in support her most recent album, The Medicine Show. Etheridge will perform both new hits from her fifteenth studio album and favorite songs from her thirty-two- year career. On Friday evening, April 24, at the Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank and in collaboration with the APMFF, Asbury Park music scene staple and vibrant front man, Remember Jones, will present Mad Dog and Englishmen, a 50th anni- versary celebration of Joe Cocker's Concert Experience. The show will feature a twenty-piece band, includ- ing several musicians from Cocker's original tour, along with a full choir and plenty of surprises in a dazzling commemoration. Saturday afternoon, April 25, Paramount Theatre (in collaboration with the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music at Monmouth University) will feature an exclusive screening of rare and never before seen clips of Asbury Park's first son of music, Bruce Springsteen. Thom Zimny, Grammy and Emmy Award-winning artist and long-time film director and archivist for Springsteen, will present footage from the Thrill Hill Vault spanning from Springsteen's early years to more recent highlights. "I'm honored to celebrate my twenty-year collabo- ration with Bruce and Jon (Landau) by sharing some of the treasures, both recent and past, with the fans," Zimny said. The sold-out screening will be followed by a panel discussion and Q&A with Backstreets magazine editor Chris Phillips. T H E S U M M E R K I C K O F F Acroterion

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