Ludacris, Slash and smokestacks highlight Bethlehem Musikfest 2024

O Little Town of Bethlehem, how loudly, colorfully and raucously we see thee celebrate.

At least, from August 1 to August 11 — when Musikfest, as it's done ever year since 1984, takes over about 60 acres of this historic steel town in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley.

With some 420 acts playing on 16 stages during those 11 days, Musikfest is the nation's biggest non-gated free music festival — though you will have to buy tickets for a handful of the top acts, including Greta Van Fleet with The Beaches (August 1), Sugar Ray, Better Than Ezra, Tonic (August 2), Slash with ZZ Ward, Robert Randolph and Grace Bowers & The Hodge Podge (August 5), Lynyrd Skynyrd (August 7), Black Eyed Peas (August 8), Ludacris (August 10), and ZZ Top with Foghat (August 11).

"You can work your way through the festival and stop and see so many different kinds of bands, in so many different genres," said festival spokeswoman Jennifer LoConte. "Everything from a traditional polka band to jazz to hiphop to country to blues. We have something new every year."

Festival with a difference

In a summer crammed with music festivals, Musikfest is unique on several counts. There is the culture of the city itself: the German and specifically Moravian heritage that goes back to the 18th century, and is reflected at the fest by the polka bands, the sausage vendors, the performance spaces with names like Festplatz, Handwerkplatz (sponsored by Martin Guitar), Lagerplatz (sponsored by Yuengling).

Just as there is a huge variety of music at the festival, there is a huge variety of food: Asian, Latin, Italian, vegan. But there are German specialties you won't find anywhere else. "You can have traditional German food one day, empanadas another," LoConte said.

The vaguely European feel of the event is no accident. Jeff Parks, who conceived it in 1983, got part of his inspiration from abroad. "He had been to Europe and been to these open-air types of festivals that bring the community together," LoConte said.

And Bethlehem, at the time, needed bringing together.

Hard times in Bethlehem before Musikfest

Bethlehem Steel, the heart and spine of the town, one of the great U.S. business enterprises since 1857, was in decline (it filed for bankruptcy in 2001). "The main streets in Bethlehem were becoming sparse, malls were cropping up and a lot of stores were closing," she said.

But Bethlehem, historically, had other things going for it besides blast furnaces. One was music.

Among other attractions, the town boasts The Bach Choir of Bethlehem, dating to 1898, one of the most celebrated in the world. It tours internationally. Writer H. L. Mencken, famous as a scathing critic of American culture, seldom had anything good to say about small-town America, but he loved the Bethlehem Choir. He visited every year, to hear them perform the B Minor Mass. "In all my life I have never attended a public show of any sort, in any country, of a more complete and charming simplicity," Mencken wrote in 1923.

Music therefore was key, when Bethlehem began to rebrand itself, starting in the 1980s, as a tourist destination. Musikfest is one of its three pillars (the others are its gambling casinos, beginning in 2009, and the Christmas tourism that derives from the "Bethlehem" name).

"It was [Parks'] vision to try to bring people back into the area, to bring a boost of tourism," LoConte said. "And of course Bethlehem, being known for its Moravian and German roots, incorporated that into the festival."

Potpourri of things to do at Musikfest

Besides music and food and crafts (some 50 vendors are represented), festival visitors can also find comedy, family activities, cultural exhibits and one-off spectacles like SPHERE, a 30-minute outdoor performance by five Italian aerialists, suspended by crane 60 feet above the ground, that occurs in and around a gigantic transparent inflatable globe. It can be seen at the Martin Guitar Handwerkplatz Aug. 9 tp 11, and 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.

"This is the first time they are performing in this country," LoConte said. "It starts out as a transparent sphere completely deflated, and it is raised by the crane until it becomes a fully inflated globe, and the aerialists are also in the air and they take the audience on a journey that reflects our planet. I can't wait to see this."

One of the striking things about Musikfest is its topography.

Bethlehem is a sprawling, multi-level town, built on a series of hills and valleys. Its music festival is a melange of different environments — from the "colonial quarter," in a gully near Monocacy Creek, accessed by steps leading down from Main Street, to the SteelStacks area, a mile and a half away, where the old blast furnaces still tower against the sky. While most of the fest is walkable, there is continuous shuttle-bus service between locations, and to and from the big parking areas at the north and south sides of town.

Stacking up at the SteelStack section at Musikfest

"Bethlehem in and of itself is a very unique city,"LoConte said. "You have your traditional neighborhoods, and you also have walking trails and farmland, and then you come to downtown Bethlehem and there's so many restaurants and shops, and so many different cultures on one street."

And then there are the old steel foundries. The SteelStack section, where the Musikfest headliners perform, is an attraction in itself. The towering, sprawling, rusty infrastructure is now a tourist site. "You can do a trestle-walk," LoConte said. "You can take the stairs or elevator, and walk along the blast furnaces. You can do a self-guided tour, and there are also tourguides. Some are actually former steelworkers."

Then at night, when the musicians take the stage and play, and behind them the old factory complex is lit up in trippy red and purple lights, it becomes a spectacle that Beyonce or Kanye West would envy.

"It's very unique," LoConte said. "Musicians that perform here always remark about playing against the backdrop of the blast furnaces. It's not something they do every day."

For complete schedule: www.musikfest.org

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Bethlehem Musikfest 2024: Ludacris, Slash, smokestacks highlight list