Festival Foods Shake the Lake is set for Saturday, June 25, beginning at 4 pm (one hour earlier than 2015) on John Nolen Drive between Broom St and Blair St.  Live nationally known music will return to the stage on the west side of the Monona Terrace with Guster headlining the event with special guests Blitzen Trapper and The Congregation along with other local bands to be announced at a later date. A new addition to the event is the 96.3 Star Country Stage on the east side of the event zone, which will be dedicated to country music and headlined by Jon Pardi. 

The event will also feature several celebrity chefs.  Patrick DePula of Salvatore’s Tomato Pies will be running Salvatore’s Double Decker Pizza Bus featuring farm to bus specialty pizzas, authentic tacos and Italian favorites.  Jonny Hunter of the Underground Food Collective and James Beard award winner Tory Miller of Estrellon, Le’Toile, Graze, and Sujeo will also be featured at the event.  Other food vendors include Pots-N-Tots, Fried and Fabulous, Taqueria Sabor Queretano, Rocky Rococo Pizzeria, Melted, Schultz’s Sugar River Kettle Corn, JD’s, Jakarta Café, Sa Bai Thong, Toast, JSS Catering, and Morgan’s Funnel Cakes and Fair Foods to go.

ABOUT FESTIVAL FOODS SHAKE THE LAKE

Festival Foods sponsors Independence Day fireworks displays in 17 communities across the state of Wisconsin. The fireworks display at Festival Foods Shake the Lake is the largest fireworks display in the entire state. Last years inaugural event drew over 70,000 attendees to the shores of Lake Monona on John Nolen Drive in Downtown Madison. The free event will feature a wide variety of entertainment including human cannonball David “The Bullet” Smith launching himself into Lake Monona, a kids zone, a zip-line, Mad Rollin’ Dolls Roller Derby exhibition, the UW Marching Band, and more.

ABOUT GUSTER

Guster formed in 1991, when Ryan Miller, Adam Gardner, and Brian Rosenworcel first crossed paths at college orientation. The trio played local shows around the Boston area before releasing an independent album, Parachute, in 1994. By 1996, they’d recorded a second album, Goldfly, which netted the band a contract with Sire Records. Released in 1999, Long and Gone Forever became the band’s unofficial breakthrough album, spinning off a hit single, “Fa Fa,” which peaked at number 26 on the Adult Top 40.

Guster went even further with their follow-up effort, Keep It Together, which featured drum kit percussion and contributions from a talented multi-instrumentalist named Joe Pisapia. The album was released during the summer of 2003.

Several months after Keep It Together’s release, Pisapia joined the group permanently. Guster returned in 2006 with their richest-sounding album to date, Ganging Up on the Sun. The group's sixth studio album, Easy Wonderful, was released in October of 2010. Around that time, Pisapia announced he wouldn't be touring with the band any longer. He was replaced in the touring lineup by guitarist Luke Reynolds. The Richard Swift-produced Evermotion, the band's seventh studio long-player, arrived in early 2015 via their own Ocho Mule label.

ABOUT JON PARDI

Pardi discovered his love of country music early, thanks in no small part to his grandmother's country karaoke machine. Falling under the spell of traditional country artists like George Jones and George Strait, and with a special affinity for Hank Williams Jr., he started writing his own songs, and joined his first band at the age of 14. Country music was the only thing Pardi really wanted to do. Pardi always knew he had to end up in Nashville, the home of country music, in order to fulfill his dream, and he moved there in 2008 when he was 23.

He had developed into a natural narrative songwriter, and landed a publishing deal just 18 months after arriving in Music City. His name got frequently noticed and recalled, and following a showcase gig with his band, Pardi signed a recording deal with Capitol Records Nashville. Using friend and collaborator Bart Butler as producer he began recording his debut album. A first single from the project, "Missin' You Crazy," was released in the spring of 2012, with the album itself, Write You a Song, finally arriving early in 2014.

ABOUT BLITZEN TRAPPER

Over the course of 15 years and seven full-length albums, Blitzen Trapper has crafted one of the more compelling and varied catalogs in contemporary rock and roll. Indeed, singer and guitarist Eric Earley, who is also the Portland, Oregon-based band's primary songwriter, is possessed of a musical and lyrical sensibility that is remarkably deep and wide; big ideas and universal emotions are wrung from the seemingly plainspoken details of small-screen and often highly personal stories, and set to music that reaches way, way back to old-timey folk and bluegrass, travels through everything from country, psychedelia and soul to prog, garage and metal, indulges gloriously in the classic rock of the 70s and 80s, and makes occasional side trips into hip-hop, skewed pop and noisy freakouts.