Blues Traveler, Wallflowers headline this year's Mayday Festival

Grammy Award-winning bands Blues Traveler and The Wallflowers plus Long Island's Wheatus and John Hampson will headline the Mayday Music Festival set for May 13 at the Long Island Community Hospital Amphitheater at Bald Hill in Farmingville.

The third annual festival's debut at the outdoor concert site also includes regional acts The Dirty Vice Band, Pete Mancini & The Hillside Airmen, MJT, Quarter Horse, and The Belle Curves, as well as performances by students from the School of Rock Port Jefferson.

Sponsored by the Suffolk Association of Municipal Employees labor union, the nonprofit charitable festival celebrates the spirit of such singer-activists as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger "and modern rock artists who have carried on their tradition, successfully capturing the voice of the working class hero," the organizers said.

Tickets go on sale Friday at Ticketmaster.com and MaydayMusicFestival.com/ticketing and are $50 for general public and $35 for members of the Suffolk AME union and for partner unions that will communicate the discount to their own members. All net proceeds go to causes including scholarships for union members and their families, union organizing and activism, and Long Island Cares: The Harry Chapin Regional Food Bank.

The blues-rock jam band Blues Traveler scored a 6X Platinum record with their 1994 album "Four," which spawned the Grammy-winning top 10 hit "Run-Around." Their most recent work, the Grammy-nominated best traditional blues album "Traveler's Blues" (2021), featured guest appearances by Keb Mo, Crystal Bowersox, Christone "Kingfish" Ingram, Warren Haynes and Rita Wilson.

The Wallflowers, fronted by Bob Dylan's son Jakob, won a Grammy for their 1996 song "One Headlight," the lead track on its 4X Platinum album "Bringing Down the Horse." Northport's Wheatus recorded the 2000 hit "Teenage Dirtbag," a rock perennial that last year became a TikTok anthem backing viral video clips by such disparate souls as Lindsay Lohan, LL Cool J, Chevy Chase, Alice Cooper, Demi Lovato, Jimmy Fallon, Gabrielle Union, Kevin Bacon, Kate Walsh and others. Hampson, an English teacher and frontman of the band Nine Days, co-wrote that group's 2000 hit "Absolutely (Story of a Girl)” in his apartment in Deer Park.

In addition to music, the family friendly festival includes activities for children, including face painting, as well as vendor displays and a market with local craft merchants selling food, beer and spirits.