Bash on Wabash

Cute, family oriented festival that many probably know about but hardly venture out for. Many of the attendees are locals living within the few blocks nearby, some accompanied by their canines and some are tourists staying at nearby hotels, motels, etc. At least that’s what I gathered from the few conversations had there on Sunday (2013).
I got there about early evening and hung out with a few lovely volunteers. The $ 5 suggested donation garnered the enjoyment of a couple white sangria ($ 6) while listening to the sounds of a few pretty good bands. I remember one was a Beatles cover band and the other was along the lines of folk music. In between sets, dance music was provided via a DJ spinning tracks from pop to hip hop to popular dance. Food was offered via a couple local food vendors & Chicago food trucks.
A few that come to mind would be :
Reggie’s rock club, Dia De Los Tamales, Beavers Donuts & Meatloaf bakery. The festival also offered areas for children and family, a mechanical bull and a sumo wrestlers arena with puffy sumo outfits to be worn while wrestling.
What constitutes as a Bash is the question, this was more like a block party. Peep the photos of the event and food if you fancy.

Compared to past years this event is going in the right direction. The children’s area was fantastic and the event itself is starting to expand. This year had over 35 different vendors. Expectations are for it to continue to grow and grow.

Cannot believe I am the first to review this awesomely amazing family fest! I’ve never heard of Bash on Wabash til this year. I was so lucky to get to see Miss Sarah Jayne Lane on stage. If you don’t know who Miss Sarah is you are missing out! She sings really cute traditional and some original children’s songs and holds concerts across the city (Beat Kitchen once in a while). We were lucky to catch her here today. My 20 month old adores her. I just found out Miss Sarah teaches a class at the SOD room as well. We are lucky enough to have her teach a class in our building but the SOD room sounds fun too.
Drum Chicago was also there keeping the kiddies entertained. There was another stage close by with jazz and some hip hop.
Dia de los Tamales and some other restaurants were there as well. The fest is about 2 blocks long but it is a great fest for parents with little ones. I definitely recommend this if you need to get out and take your kids somewhere fun.

Bash on Wabash wasn’t so much a bash as a quiet gathering. I highly prefer this to the nuttiness of most chicago festivals, in which strangers are constantly bumping into you, spilling beer on you, sweating on you, and it is impossible to walk around freely…
However, in a perfect world, bash on wabash would have had the same small crowd BUT with way more awesome vendors. Also, this was a sweet corn festival, and they only had one place to get anything having to do with corn. The corn was good, but I expected more stations with things made of corn, or different types of sweet corn, etc.
They also had no local restaurants.
On the plus side, there was this amazing bosnian encased meat there called Cevapcici. It was in a pita with this spicy eggplant sauce over it. I asked the guy where I can get it and he said I can go to a bosnian store to buy the meat, but he didn’t know if I could get the sandwich itself anywhere. WHAT! That stuff was delicious.
In addition to Cevapcici there was a robinson’s, crepes/​gelato, popcorn, and pizza. That was it for food. They also had beer and sangria stations.

This festival was a bit of a disappointment. With a little more thought, it really could be pretty great. And I’d love to have more events like this in my neighborhood. Well, maybe not like this exactly…
Let’s start with what they did right:
~good lineup of bands
~cheap corn
~interesting eco-​friendly vibe with the vendors
Moving on to what they really need to improve:
~no local vendors. why not highlight the restaurants and businesses in the south loop instead of importing everything from the north side?
~beer was in particularly small cups.
~strange layout. made it feel even emptier than it was.
~holiday weekend = bad timing
I hope this festival continues to improve next year. Could be such an asset to the neighborhood.

You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig. You can put lipstick on a hair metal cover band, but it’s still a hair metal cover band. But if you try to put lipstick on an ear of sweet corn, well then you’re just crazy.
There is no way to dress this festival up into something it’s not. It was just a poor festival. Sweet corn Chicago? More like bleak fest Chicago.
Maybe I was expecting too much, but I got there a bit before the other people in my group so I could check the place out leisurely before my friends got there and we went to the stage. Well, my stroll lasted about a minute. And that’s because I took some time out to dodge the frisbees being thrown at the empty DJ stage and bought a $ 1 ear of sweet corn.
Now I understand the lack of attendees since it was on a holiday weekend. What I don’t understand is the complete lack of effort on the part of the organizers. Neighborhood festivals are supposed to showcase a neighborhood, of course, but I didn’t think it was supposed to be due to the lack of vendors leaving space to show off the neighborhood’s storefronts.
The few stalls there were turned out to be very eco-​friendly. I bought vegan, organic soap from a place I had seen at Green Music Festival (another attendance disaster) — Ethically Engineered. But other than that, about all there was to do was chow on sweet corn (on the plus side, they were big ears of corn), drink Budweiser, and watch Hairbanger’s Ball.
So a second star for having a great musical lineup. But when are some festival organizers going to realize that a Chicago street fair isn’t Field of Dreams. If you build it (it being a stage), people aren’t necessarily going to come. You have to fill the area around the stage with interesting things — and it can’t just be what appears to be ghost vendors.

Got here Sunday night and it was almost as empty as Jazz Fest! A DJ was spinning on the north end with about 5 people dancing… sad. There were great deals to be had with the «Bash» winding down, as in $ 1 ears of hot buttered corn, YUM!
There were a handful of vendors (Cevapcici shout out!) but this is hardly a reason to make a separate trip to the South Loop. Since we had been at Jazz Fest it was a nice change of pace. We had wine (a generous pour) for $ 6 a glass, and 16 oz. Bud was $ 5. Our $ 5 donation supported the local Association and got us a great headliner Sunday night in Hairbanger’s Ball! As goofy as over the top cover bands can be, they put on a great show!
Labor Day Weekend festivals can either be seen as a great way to enjoy Chicago without the crowds, or as an eerie reminder that half of the population has left the City. Sadly, Bash on Wabash was eerily the latter.

I was a bit disapointed at the Jazz fest so I meandered down the way to the «Bash on Wabash»! What I found was a corn vendor dumping his corn at below wholesale prices, 10 ears for a dollar, a guy cooking tubes of delicious meat, served on a pita, with a red pepper sauce, and a bunch of people playing bags.
I think I drove around bigger block parties this weekend. The «Bash» was 2 blocks long and should have been under one roof, the vendors all had this look of oh fuck how much longer should I keep up this cherade.
There were some decent bands playing, just not while I was there. There was a DJ playing at the other end, but no one was listening. The funny thing about this «Bash» was it really captured the feel of the South loop. Everything is almost, like most places that spring up to soon, just not enough of anything, particularly people.
By the way who was the genius who planned this for Labor Day weekend?

Street fest? Yes
Bash? No, Bash on Wabash was hardly a bash, but a small smattering of people scattered across two city blocks.
When I arrived at 6:30 on Sunday it looked like the fest was already winding down. There was already one vendor that was packing up and going home and some of the food, namely sweet corn and water, was already on sale.
It’s really a joke that the website describes the fest as a «lively festival [that] mirrors the South Loop’s vibrancy.» This fest needed more vendors, particularly local food ones. I think there were 4 food stands in all, the biggest draws being the corn and cevapcici stands. The sangria stand was sponsored by the Waterhouse/​Rebel/​Blue Light bar group, all northside establishments. I felt like the $ 5 Bud’s were stingy servings, maybe I’m imagining things, but the cups seemed smaller than at other fests.
I will give props to the vendors that were there peddling their wares, it wasn’t the standard festival stuff and emphasized the eco-​friendly. My friends picked up a few handbags made of recycled materials and organic, vegan soaps.
The saving grace of this festival was the closing acts Sixteen Candles (Sat.) and Hairbangers Ball (Sun.), both are groups that consistently put on solid, crowd pleasing shows and have pretty big followings. I didn’t catch the Saturday show, but Hairbangers was rockin’ as always.
For a neighborhood, which includes a stretch of Wabash with a lot of great restaurants, I was sorely disappointed in this fest. Hopefully, they’ll consider adding more neighborhood food vendors when planning for next year’s fest.

Oh the smell… I wish it would have been of freshly roasted corn. Unfortunately the food vendors are right across from the port o potties and directly over the sewer. Since the fest is still so small and condensed that there weren’t many places to put the bathrooms but at some point more strategic placement will be available as it grows. There were a couple options for food, Robinsons and a vegetarian vendor besides the corn. Since the focus was on the corn, I thought there would be more condiments, making it a grander experience. It just had the usual, salt and pepper. If you wanted to get really crazy you could add seasoned salt. An ear of corn was reasonable at $ 2. Beer was the ordinary as most downtown fests, Bud products and another alternative. Wine and sangria were also available, a welcome addition in my opinion. The vendors weren’t especially busy, they definitely could have been helped by a better lighting system. Their booths were dark, making it hard to see their merchandise later in the evening. Either a better lighting system needs to be worked out or just have the vendors there during the daylight huors. The main band was fun, an 80’s retro band that tours the Chicago area. People seemed to be having a good time, bopping to the music. Surrounding condo buildings also provided entertainment as people came out to enjoy the music and were dancing on their balconies. It is a nice little neighborhood and a nice little fest. I hope they kick it up a notch next year and get more people out to make it an even better time for all!

Bash on Wabash is the newcomer to the Street Fest category and to be honest it shows. I don’t mean for this to be negative as all fest have a beginning. This is the 2^nd annual and already shows improvement.
When we first arrived on Saturday 9−5−09 at about 6:00pm, I thought this is going to suck, there’s barely anybody here. It turns out the bulk of the crowd was at the Live band stage at the South end. We quickly settled in with some beers and listened to the band «Corn Meal». They were a string band (w/​a drummer) that had a good sound. It wasn’t long before I realized I do not need streets packed with people to have a good time as there were no lines for food, beer or bathrooms. Cha– ching! After the bands set we went for some food and a stroll. Since the tag line or theme for the fest was «Sweet Corn Chicago», first up was roasted corn on the cob for $ 2. The corn was cooked perfect and proved to be a real bargain. I am still not sure how or why corn got mixed into the theme but why not? Next stop was at Robinson’s ribs which is no stranger to street fests. I ordered the pulled pork for $ 6. I think that is their best bargain with plenty of meat & quite tasty. You could also get a small ¼ slab of ribs for $ 8. with less meat than my sandwich. As we walked I felt bad for a lot of the vendors that just looked bored with no customers. I say hang in there vendors and visitors as this fest will get there. Thanks for proving long lines are not a key ingredient to good times.