This Saturday, the 38th Annual San Jose Fountain Blues & Brews Festival unfolds in Plaza de Cesar Chavez, once again cementing the festival’s position as the longest running affair of its kind in the Bay Area.

The history is worth repeating. The birth of the festival takes us back to a version of San Jose that now seems like the vanishing Wild West, when the SJSU Associated Students Program Board oversaw a serious budget to book concerts on campus all year long. It also harkens back to a time when notorious rock promoter Bill Graham was still trying to prevent anything in San Jose from succeeding.

When a young Rick Bates first emigrated from Iowa to the Associated Students at SJSU, he hit up Ted Gehrke for a job. Gehrke assigned Bates to put up concert posters around town, but Gates eventually wound up with the title of contemporary arts chair, meaning he worked with Gehrke to book concerts.

In the spring of 1981, the prog rock band Ambrosia had just fired its manager and agent, so the group needed a gig. Working for the Associated Students, Bates booked them in the San Jose Civic Auditorium. The show sold out, giving the program board a pile of dough with which they organized the first Fountain Blues Festival, over the first weekend in May of that year.

These days, when students don’t get to experience a live music infrastructure of any sort, let alone getting on the phone with national booking agencies, it seems hard to fathom a San Jose in which such activity unfolded on a regular basis. In the late ’70s, for example, Bates helped book a Peter Gabriel show in the old SJSU men’s gym, located in what’s now Uchida Hall. Bill Graham called up Bates and tried to stop the show because Graham wanted exclusivity in San Francisco.

“At that time I was 20 years old, and he starts screaming at me,” Bates recalled. “I’m a snotty little kid, and I’m going, ‘Hey this is pretty cool. I must be doing something right. Bill Graham’s calling me up and yelling at me.’ I thought it was really pretty funny. We did another show with U2, and he did the same thing.”

The U2 show, with Romeo Void opening up, is now one of the most legendary stories in San Jose rock history. On the Irish band’s first US tour in 1981, Bates and Gehrke initially booked them to play a free show in the outdoor concrete amphitheater next to the Student Union. Bill Graham tried to stop the show because he wanted U2’s first Bay Area gig to be at the Old Waldorf, scheduled for the next night in San Francisco. Despite Graham’s threats, the free U2 show in San Jose went on. However, once it was booked and word began to explode, it was relocated upstairs into the old Student Union Ballroom, which is now a suite of antiseptic meeting facilities. Since the Brutalist-style Student Union structure was built on earthquake rollers, the over-capacity crowds pogo-dancing began to shake the building. Staff stood on both sides of the stage with ropes to prevent the speaker columns from falling over. At one point, Romeo Void’s tour manager got stuck in the elevator. People were scared.

According to those who attended, even with the stage verging on collapse, the young Bono was already on a path to rock stardom. He knew how to command an audience and work a room. The show was a smashing success.

Bates went on to manage several well-known blues and roots acts, including Los Lobos, who ended up opening for U2 on the Joshua Tree tour, putting Bates back in touch with Bono. At the time, Bono still remembered the harrowing SJSU gig.

When it comes to the Fountain Blues Festival, Bates speaks fondly of the original days. At the time, it just felt like a cool project for some students to work on.

“I always feel like sometimes things are just at the right place at the right time,” Bates said. “Everybody wanted to do it, and it was really successful. I never thought that it would last as long as it has.”

Of all the incredible blues performances Dan Ross has seen in his time, there is one he will never forget. “It was just fantastic when John Lee Hooker came out and basically rocked 3,000 people with his boot,” Ross says, recalling one of the two times the blues legend performed at the Fountain Blues Festival in San Jose.

It was the mid-’80s, and Ross was a 19-year-old San Jose State University student intent on helping build a blues festival for his alma mater. He couldn’t possibly have known back then that the Fountain Blues Festival would go on to become one of San Jose’s best known music festivals.

Not even Ted Gehrke, who was serving as faculty advisor to Ross and the rest of SJSU’s Associated Students—the student-run organization that pushed to start the festival—realized what they had set in motion. “Never in [his] wildest dreams” did Gehrke think the Fountain Blues Festival would grow like it has.

The Associated Students started the Fountain Blues Festival in 1981. According to Gehrke, the students chose to focus on blues because of its mass appeal and because of budget constraints: hiring blues musicians was cheaper than pop or rock artists.

For the first 25 years, even though the festival was free, Gehrke, Ross and others still managed to book top talent—like Hooker, Buddy Guy and Bo Diddley.

The festival did suffer some slow years. Heavy rain forced organizers to reschedule the festival in 1994 and the whole show was nearly halted in 1997 because of financial troubles. However, just like the music it presents, the festival proved tough to kill.

Organizers started charging festival goers in 2005. That same year, they booked Etta James, who undoubtedly helped ticket sales. That year’s Fountain Blues Festival sold out fast.

Today, the fest is produced by the non-profit Fountain Blues Foundation. The foundation is composed of 14 volunteer board members, with Gehrke as president and some of the same 1981 individuals who were a part of the Associated Students team that organized the first Fountain Blues Festival, including Ross. Coming into its 35th year, organizers expect to draw between 3,000 and 5,000 people from all over the South Bay and beyond.

Looking into the future, Fountain Blues Foundation member Amy Anderson says the goal of the festival remains the same as always—but with a twist.

The mission of the Fountain Blues Festival has always been to preserve the history of blues. However, Anderson says, the foundation is currently looking at ways of drawing new listeners into the fold, which means including a variety of artists and bands with different backgrounds—not just the blues.

“We’re trying to diversify the music to broaden the audience,” Anderson says, noting that younger listeners might not even realize how much the popular music they have grown up listening to is influenced by the blues.

As Ross puts it: “It’s a blues festival, but it’s really an American music festival.”

This year’s headliners are The California Honeydrops. Known for their energetic and engaging performances, The California Honeydrops play a mixture of R&B, funk, Delta blues and Southern soul. Their impressive repertoire of performances includes festivals like Outside Lands, Monterey Jazz and High Sierra. 

Returning to the festival this year is Otis Taylor. Known for songs “Nasty Letter” and his version of “Hey Joe,” Taylor has played the Fountain Blues Festival twice before—in 2004 and 2010—and Anderson describes him as “Jimi Hendrix on the banjo.” Taylor’s somber lyrics and stories capture the purest and most authentic form of the blues.

Opening the event is the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir. The award-winning choir was founded in 1986 at a gospel music workshop at Living Jazz’s Jazz Camp West. 

The festival still keeps close ties to SJSU by including a side stage where students from SJSU and area high schools showcase performances.

Fountain Blues Festival
Jun 25, 11am, $20-$75
Plaza de Cesar Chavez, San Jose

As the opening bookend to the Bay Area’s summer music festival season, the avid weekend warrior would do well to think of BottleRock as a warm-up. The three-day celebration is packed with some of the biggest names in pop, as well as plenty of amazing, lesser-known acts—not to mention the culinary celebrities, beer, wine and food.

Fitting all of that food and music into three days is a daunting proposition. However, compared to the logistical nightmare of crisscrossing Golden Gate Park for three days in an attempt to catch all the best headliners and indie darlings at Outside Lands, the Napa festival is a breeze.

Nonetheless, just as it’s important for families to have emergency plans, it is advisable to head into BottleRock armed with a lay of the land, a list of must see performances and appearances, and sunblock.

Getting a list started is easy. No-brainers include Stevie Wonder, Florence + The Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Lumineers and Death Cab for Cutie. On the Culinary Stage there are some pretty obvious choices as well: Gordon Ramsay of Hell’s Kitchen and Masterchef; comedy duo and masters of the munchies, Cheech and Chong; and Masaharu Morimoto of Iron Chef.

But what about all these other names on the bill? The ones that don’t immediately call to mind platinum-selling records or uber-popular Food Network shows? Don’t sweat it. That’s where we come in. Here are our picks for five can’t-miss performances and foodie presentations at BottleRock 2016.

The Pharcyde
Some of rap’s greatest artists rose to prominence in the early ’90s. Even grandma is familiar with the biggest names from hip-hop’s golden age: Biggie, Pac, Nas. The Pharcyde isn’t as much of a household name, even though most will recognize the L.A. group’s biggest hits. With their loopy, loping boom-bap beats, gymnastic flows and penchant for absurdist observation, this SoCal quartet is responsible for the iconic “Passin’ Me By” and uproarious “Ya Mama” from Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde and Latin-jazz flavored “Runnin’” from Labcabincalifornia. They haven’t dropped a proper album since 2004’s Humboldt beginnings, but that’s fine. After all, anyone attending a music festival in wine country ought to know, some things only get better with age.

K.Flay
Since graduating from Stanford University, Kristine Flaherty—better known as K.Flay—has forged a career as a rapper and producer. Born in Chicago, she moved out to California to study at The Farm. After that she moved Brooklyn for a time and was briefly signed to RCA Records. These days her base of operations is Oakland and she’s no longer on the major label (she left after refusing to squeeze herself into a more easily marketable mold, as execs there suggested). Nevertheless, she self-released the full-length, Life as a Dog, in 2014, which has earned her favorable press. Flaherty just dropped a new single, “FML,” an ode to split personalities.

Deap Vally
This high energy garage rock duo sound a bit like The White Stripes—except both members are blonde women who hail from L.A. instead of Detroit. You can almost hear the Southern California sunshine glittering between the dusty, overdriven guitar stabs and tambourine shakes on their latest, blistering single, “Royal Jelly.”

Tre Cool & Mike Dirnt
The East Bay’s pop-punk success story, Green Day, won’t be playing this year’s BottleRock. However, the band’s drummer and bassist—Tré Cool and Mike Dirnt—will be taking to the culinary stage. The pair surely have learned some interesting food hacks over their years spent living in and out of tour buses. And Dirnt is himself a restaurateur. He is part owner of Rudy’s Can’t Fail Café in Oakland.

Dwight Clark
The young BottleRock festival is only a few years old, but it has already established certain traditions, such as inviting professional football stars to participate in its live food presentations. This year, 49er faithful will receive a special treat, as Dwight “The Catch” Clark will take to the Culinary Stage.

Despite federal raids and local land-use fights plaguing marijuana dispensaries, the industry will soon go from medicinal to outright legal, says Freddy Sayegh, an activist and criminal defense attorney. California will join the ranks of Colorado and Washington, he says, and it’s only a matter of time before the federal government reclassifies the drug from a Schedule I controlled substance, deemed to have no medical benefit, to a Schedule II, which recognizes clinical properties and allows researchers to legally study the plant.

“That’s a future we should all prepare for,” says Sayegh, the keynote speaker at HempCon in San Jose this week. “Things will change drastically. This will move from a non-profit to a for-profit market, a competitive market opened up to recreational uses. I believe 2014 is the year to talk about what future distribution models will look like and look back at what we can learn from other states that have legalized it already.”

Sayegh will join a host of other speakers and about 10,000 attendees at the fifth annual HempCon, which kicks off a four-city tour Friday at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center.

The convention runs through Sunday, and it is both festival and educational event, showcasing the latest in smoking accessories and hydroponics.

On the educational side, there are workshops and lectures on topics ranging from starting a delivery business to making THC-based lotions and elixirs. On Friday, cannabis consultant Ralf Rainer will talk about patient dispensary management, Cannabis Career Institute’s Robert Calkin will discuss legal compliance in California and hemp historian Gary Maciel will explore the weird past of the psychoactive plant. Weekend workshops include Sayegh’s keynote speech and more lectures from the Cannabis Career Institute on advanced cultivation, dispensary management, growing opportunities and investing in the marijuana industry.

Sayegh encourages attendees to learn about the laws surrounding THC wax, the super-concentrated butane hash oil, which is legal to possess with a cannabis card but illegal to manufacture.

“There have been a lot of new cases and arrests from people trying to make wax out of butane,” he says. “There’s so much vagueness in the law around concentrates in terms of what’s lawful to possess. But I’m fighting some big cases where people are facing up to six years in state prison for manufacturing butane-based concentrated cannabis. A lot of people don’t know the risk.”

Among the 90-plus vendors registered for the event, physicians from San Jose 420 Evaluations will conduct cannabis consultations on site. Attendees can find options for local treatment, learn about new ways to ingest the plant and ask for legal advice from several attorneys on hand.

Of course, HempCon is as much a haven for medicinal users as it is a celebration of marijuana culture, with clothing, souvenirs, scantily clad booth babes and live performances. Entertainment will range from a standup comedy lineup and THC oil cooking demo to a variety show and musical acts starring Addey Lance and Sour Diesel.