Homer Concert on the Lawn celebrates music and community spirit in Homer

Homer’s public radio station, KBBI, provided live music to the city of Homer at the annual Concert on the Lawn on Saturday from noon to 7 p.m. at Karen Hornaday Park. Local performers included Uplift, Jim Maloney and Jon Cottingham, Raised By Humans, Transient Identity, Raised By Humans, Boom Boom Summer, Jon Crocker, Silas Jones, Cosmic Creature Club, KP Brass Band, and Luna & Ursus.

The concert returned in 2022 after several years’ hiatus due to COVID and other reasons.

This year the station wasn’t sure the weather would cooperate to keep the event outdoors, but Saturday turned out sunny enough to get people dancing on the lawn. Several folks attending have been around the station for quite awhile and remember some of the early years of the event.

Long-time local resident Cristy Fry, also a contributor to the Homer News, was involved in what many consider to be the very first COTL in about 1980. It was held in the back lot of the Yah Sure Club. The club has since burned down, but was located where the Point of View mall stands today. The show was headlined by Hobo Jim, who passed away in 2021. Other entertainment included crab pot races where crews pushed 800-pound crab pots across the lot.

Fry became a DJ at the station about June of 1978 when she stopped by early one morning, when it was located in a building on Lake Street, to say hello to her mother, Randi Somers, the first news director.

“Radio station manager at the time, Pete Carran, was playing music without much enthusiasm,” Fry shared in an email.

“He showed me how to cue up a vinyl record and open the mic, and then left for coffee. I came back nearly every morning after that,” she said.

Musicians John Bushell and Dave Webster, now performing together with the Cosmic Creature Club, have also been involved from some of the earliest days of the event. Webster shared some of his memories of building platforms, arms and visqueen for the stage in case it rained.

Cited in a Homer News 2022 article, Rita Turner, the 1980 COTL coordinator, provided her memories of the first year of the event. “Brother Asaiah began the first eight-hour concert event with the Invocation, blessing KBBI and the Kachemak Bay community. Steve Smith and Eddie Wood led a jazz ensemble as the first group to perform,” she wrote. “Eight hours of wonderful musical volunteers performing concluded with the crowd dancing to the tunes of The English Bay Band. Families were spread out on blankets across the lawn. Volunteers had prepared a spaghetti buffet, including a vegetarian choice.”