It's Roots On The River Festival time!

The 9^th Annual Roots On The River Festival/Fred Eaglesmith Weekend will be held from Thursday, June 5, 2008 through Sunday, June 8, 2008.

Kicking off the weekend will be Lori McKenna in a full-blown concert production at the beautifully restored 553 seat Bellows Falls Opera House on Thursday, June 5, 2008. Mark Erelli will support. The Opera House boasts a state of the art sound and lighting system, along with the most comfortable theatre seating in New England.

The concert will be preceded by a Deluxe Reception for those Deluxe Weekend Ticket holders.

On Friday, the Festival will host an Open Mic show at Boccelli's On the Canal from 12 noon until 2:00pm. Details will be posted on the website, www.rootsontheriver.com, as they are updated.

At 4:00pm we move to the Bellows Falls Farmers' Market, across the canal from Boccelli's. The Lonesome Brothers will be performing at the Market free concert. Other artists to be announced as they are confirmed.

Then, on to The Big Tent at the Festival's Main Venue behind the Everyday Inn for the Friday night show. This show will open with The Lonesome Brothers, followed by The Bottle Rockets from St. Louis Missouri, who will play the Festival as one of their limited 15^th Anniversary concerts. And for their first performance of the weekend, Fred Eaglesmith and The Flying Squirrels. Fred will be performing many of his songs from the just released "Tinderbox."

Saturday will find us back at The Big Tent for the all day lineup. Kicking off the day will be George's Back Pocket, featuring George Nostrand, Bellows Falls' native son. The rest of the day will see the Festival's favorite birthday boy, Roger Marin and his band, Sarah Borges and The Broken Singles, the Starline Rhythm Boys, Eilen Jewel, Robbie Fulks, Steve Forbert and Fred Eaglesmith and The Flying Squirrels.

In addition to all the music, throw in ample free parking, terrific food and drink at reasonable prices, a kid's tent, great festival merchandise, the equipment swap tent, the best fans anywhere, and it all adds up to an unbeatable day of music.

Sunday finds us at the historic Rockingham Meeting House, the 200+ year old landmark and oldest continuously operating public building in Vermont. With no electricity, no running water and incredible acoustics designed to amplify the 18^th century preachers it was built to accommodate, we welcome back long-time Festival favorite, Mary Gauthier. She returns after a two year absence to focus her concise, poetic lyrics on the midnight hours of desperate souls and confirms that she's among the best singer-songwriters of her generation, especially when it comes to illustrating ramblers, derelicts and anyone who struggles with demons in the night. Fred Eaglesmith and The Flying Squirrels will round out the weekend with their third Festival concert to close out the afternoon. The Meeting House venue is my personal favorite of the weekend.

There are individual tickets, including kid's specially priced Saturday tickets, along with weekend ticket packages and a limited number of Deluxe Weekend ticket packages now available online at www.rootsontheriver.com

Regular Tickets available at these outlets starting May 1, 2008: