Air Supply shares its talent on Alton Amphitheater stage Sunday

ALTON - Crews had to scramble Sunday morning to clean up from the overnight storm to prepare the Liberty Bank Amphitheater for Air Supply Sunday night.

"The public workers director let us know that it looked like a bomb went off down here," Robert Stephan, Chairman of the Amphitheater Commission said. "A lot of the setup from yesterday had all been blown over and some of it destroyed. So it was all hands on deck with park and recs staff, public works staff, our promoter, sound and light folks and all of our vendors came here early and started rebuilding what they setup yesterday. By about 11 or 12 they had everything back in shape and ready to go."

After setting up everything again in the heat for the second day in a row, staff and crew had the amphitheater ready for an exciting night with Air Supply.

Mayor of Alton Brant Walker said enough thanks couldn't be given to the parks and rec as well as the public works department for their preparation after the storm.

"Everything you see standing right now, this morning was on the ground," Mayor Walker said. "It's a wonderful day for Alton. Great advertisement. It's a great way to promote our city with a tremendous band. Air Supply is just fantastic."

Mayor Walker said seeing acts like Air Supply come to the city is excellent for Alton, and he's excited to see more and more big names make a stop in Alton.

"With the amount of talent we've had in our city for the last four years," Mayor Walker said. "What it shows is that Alton can sustain national acts and start to change the perception of our city. This is one, we have Better Than Ezra, we had Lynyrd Skynyrd, Charlie Daniels, Sugar Ray, Smash Mouth, Uncle Cracker. It shows that this is becoming a very regional large downtown area. Which is the way it should have always been. So it bodes well for our city that we can continue on a consistent year to year basis to promote big events like this."

The amphitheater promoter Sam Foxman said they've been working very closely with the community, through public feed back to try and bring in acts that Alton wants to see and will respond well to.

"We're really asking the community," Foxman said. "It's been a three-year endeavor to get feedback. Every years a little bit different, but it keeps getting better and better."

Mayor Walker and Stephan both said it's exciting to see the amphitheater grow and create a place for community to come together.

"It's really nice. Not only that we have the bigger events but also that we have the free movies for kids," Walker said. "The fourth of July is bigger and better than ever. We have a jazz festival coming. We have bikes and barbecue. It's really nice to finally see our riverfront being utilized the way that it should be."

A schedule of events coming to the amphitheater this summer can be found of the amphitheater's website and on the Riverbender.com's events calendar.

More like this:

Print Version