Civil Eats

Slow Food Rocks will bring together Phil Lesh and Friends, Gnarls Barkley, Ozomatli, The New Pornographers, Medeski Martin & Wood and G Love & Special Sauce and the John Butler Trio for two days of concerts coinciding with Slow Food Nation. The main course: world-class rock and rock-flavored music defying limitations of genre. The icing on the cake: extraordinary views of the magical Golden Gate Bridge from the Great Meadow at Fort Mason.

Slow Food Rocks is only one of three public events permitted on the Great Meadow this year. The concert will be held on Saturday, August 30 from 11am to 7pm and Sunday, August 31 from 11am to 5:30pm.

Gnarls Barkley, the GRAMMY®-winning alternative music duo, headlines Saturday, August 30, sharing the stage with Ozomatli, The New Pornographers and Medeski Martin & Wood.

In a rare, hometown appearance, Phil Lesh and Friends will headline the concert on Sunday, August 31. Sunday’s other performers include G Love & Special Sauce and the John Butler Trio. Throughout the years, Phil Lesh and Friends have included some of the greatest names in rock music. The latest formation of Phil and Friends, including Lesh (the Grateful Dead’s bassist), Larry Campbell (guitar, mandolin, fiddle), Jackie Greene (vocals and guitar), Steve Molitz (keyboards) and John Molo (drums), debuted in September 2007 in Santa Barbara, CA.

Slow Food Nation is sourcing all of the food and beverage vendors for the music festival. We’ll be showcasing the best in good, clean and fair prepared foods, meats, produce, micro-brews and wine. To highlight issues concerning urban and global water use, we’re partnering with Food & Water Watch and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to develop accessible and visible water stations. All water will be free of charge. Festival-goers are encouraged to bring their own reusable water bottle, as Slow Food Nation strives to be a zero-waste event.

Tickets for Slow Food Rocks are on sale now at www.slowfoodrocks.com or via phone at (877) 655-4TIX (4849). Single-day and two-day passes will be available at the reserved and general admission levels.

Slow Food Rocks is being produced by San Francisco’s own The Festival Network (FN), which develops, acquires and produces multi-day music festivals and live entertainment properties in unique destinations around the globe. FN’s predecessor company, Festival Productions, pioneered the outdoor “festival era” in 1954 with the creation of the renowned Newport Jazz Festival®. In 2008, FN is producing music festivals in Jackson Hole, WY; Whistler, BC; Newport, RI; Los Angeles, CA; Hampton, VA; Saratoga Springs, NY; Martha’s Vineyard, MA, and Monte Carlo, Monaco, as well as eight JVC Jazz Festivals worldwide.

Naomi Starkman is a food policy consultant to Consumers Union and others. She is the co-founder and editor of Civil Eats and Kitchen Table Talks, a local food forum in San Francisco, a board member of 18 Reasons, a nonprofit connecting community through food, and is on the Circle of Friends Council for the Community Alliance with Family Farmers. She served as the Director of Communications & Policy at Slow Food Nation ’08 and has worked as a media consultant at The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, GQ and WIRED magazines. She was previously a senior publicist at Newsweek magazine and was the Director of Communications for the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR). From 1997 to 2000, she served as Deputy Executive Director of the S.F. Ethics Commission. Naomi works with various clients on food policy and advocacy and is an aspiring organic grower, having worked on several farms.