To the Editor:

Sunday, July 22nd will stand out in the annals of the rich history of the Norwood Village Green Concert Series. A record-breaking $2,755 was collected in the series traditional “pass the bucket” during a performance of The Gibson Brothers. The previous record of $1725 was established in 1987 when the Canadian super-country-group Family Brown performed. The record had stood for 25 years.

Anticipating a large audience turnout, a third bucket was purchased for the event, three zones were created, and I was assisted in the collection by two other teams, Marshall and Donald Deon, and Jason Dickinson.

Over the years six concerts have surpassed the $1000 “Pass the bucket’ mark in the following financial order:

1.The Gibson Brothers – $2755 – 2012

2. Family Brown – $1725 – 1987

3. The Glenngarry Bhoys – $1344 – 2005

4. Wayne Bergeron with the All Star Big Band under the direction of Wally Siebel – $1,179 – 2012

5. CJ Chenier and the Red Hot Louisiana Band – $1,102 – 2004

6. McPeake – $1,063 – 2011

Interestingly enough two of the above six were in 2012.

Since 1995 the series has raised more than $100,000 in its “pass the buckets”. This element of its budget is critical in not only financially supporting the wide variety of performances, but it also demonstrates the public’s support to the community effort. The “pass the buckets’ represents a sixth of the series budget on an annual basis.

Attendance is another way to demonstrate support. While the Gibson Brothers concert did break the “pass the bucket” record it did not break the attendance record. That honor still belongs to Family Brown with more than 4500 people in attendance. The estimated attendance of the Gibson Brothers concert was near capacity at 3000. Due to the reconfiguration of the Norwood Village Green with the addition of the playground, capacity in the park for concerts is 3500 so the Family Brown concert will continue to hold that record. The series is progressing to the 600,000 aggregate attendance mark.

Enjoy the rest of our season and look forward to our 40th anniversary season in 2013. It will be a blockbuster. It is already planned. Our motto “Enjoy it. We do!”

And a special thanks to Andy Van Duyne who has been our volunteer sound technician though all of the years. The Gibson Brothers, all of our other performers and our audience have appreciated your expert work.

Joseph M. Liotta, Norwood Village Green