Flatfooting back in action as Friday Night Jamboree returns inside the Floyd Country Store
Show went virtual, and then in the backyard during the pandemic
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Country Store Jamboree returns to Floyd
FLOYD, Va. – Downtown Floyd felt normal for the first time in a long time Friday night with the return of the Friday Night Jamboree. The iconic bluegrass dance party stopped for more than a year due to the pandemic.
There wasn’t a free square inch of the dance floor at the Floyd Country Store Friday night. Ben Harman and his friends have been coming for years and they couldn’t wait to be back at it.
THURSDAY
5PTS Sanctuary Revival: Empire Strikes Brass
New Orleans-style horn band returns from its home base, Asheville, North Carolina. Saxophonist, singer and James River High School graduate Debrissa McKinney returns with the group.
Details: 7:30 p.m. 5 Points Music Sanctuary, Roanoke. $18-$25 reserved seating, $14 general admission via seetickets.us/07082021. 795-5618, info@5pointsmusic.com, empirestrikesbrass.com
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The Floyd Country Store made it through.
The old-time mecca and major draw on The Crooked Road went through some hard times during the pandemic, as did many venues everywhere. In Floyd, though, the storeâs Friday Night Jamboree fueled the little downtownâs economy.
Venue owners Dylan Locke and Heather Krantz worked to find workarounds, and relied on both livestreaming, donation-based performances and a porch stage out back, where the property abuts a rented guest house, to stage shows.
A group calling itself Friends of the Floyd Country Store sparked a crowdfunding campaign last year, raising more than $60,000 by October, according to a post at GoFundMe.com.
In 1981, we moved from Alton, IL, to the Washington, DC area, so I could start what I then thought would be, at most, a two or three-year sabbatical to lean more about how our national government worked, so I could use that knowledge as a newspaperman.
We looked briefly at housing in the District of Columbia, but decided it was too expensive and crowded. Virginia was the best option because it was closer to the Capitol than anywhere else, and we found a condo for rent on the Orange subway line that would offer good public transportation not only to work but to visit other parts of the capital city.