Candidates spar in second Great Debate

The gubernatorial hopefuls attack each other over the attacks they’ve launched during the campaign.

Festival adds extra inspiration

A former camper at Camp Sunshine, Zach Pomerleau returns with a high school blues band to play a set.

Music and Nightlife: Band of brothers (and fathers)

Twenty-three years together, the guys and dads of Blues Traveler are still jamming, having learned how to schedule their touring around children’s birthdays and the like.

Maine at Work: At David’s restaurant,a server has a lot on his plate

I knew right away that many of the physical tasks of waiting tables were going to be beyond me.

Like when Michael Farrell — the waiter I was shadowing at David’s restaurant in Monument Square last week — asked me to get three drinks for a table of five ladies having lunch.

I put the three pint glasses (two iced teas and a soda) on a tray and began carrying it with two hands. Farrell offered that he carried drink trays with one hand under the center, so he could serve with the other hand. I tried this, and the tray wobbled, so I grabbed it with the other hand. Then I tried one hand again, and almost lost all three drinks.

You light up my fright

Halloween, in pop-culture terms, is the new Christmas.

Music and Nightlife: All dolled up

Robby Takac can relate to the excitement being created in Portland by the historic and newly renovated State Theatre.

Takac and his bandmates in Goo Goo Dolls are from gritty Buffalo, N.Y., and have their own recording studio there. It’s located in an historic building that was once the chapel of a private girls’ school. They recently renovated it into a state-of-the-art recording space.

Maine at Work: Aye, there’s the rub: No pain is gain for clients after massage therapy

Walter Selens was standing in the lobby of his massage therapy practice on Forest Avenue, explaining that his main focus is on using massage to help people get a wider range of motion or relief from pain.

What he does most of the time, he told me, does not fit in with the popular image of massages given to stressed-out executives on vacation at a spa. It’s more like physical therapy, but without weights and machines.

First up, this Friday: My Morning Jacket

Rock fans love fanciful stories about how bands got together, or how they got their names. So it’s no wonder that if you search for My Morning Jacket online, you’ll see lots of mentions of how the members found a jacket at the scene of a fire, and the initials MMJ were on it. “Yeah, […]

Music and Nightlife: It’s a Date

More than a year ago, as the ornate State Theatre sat dormant, Rob Derhak made a request to his manager.

“I told him that if they re-open the State, I’d really like for us to do the opening night,” said Derhak, bassist for the band moe. and a 13-year Falmouth resident. “It’s a no-brainer for us. We recorded an album there (“The Conch”), and the vibe of that room is really good; it’s a little bit loose and the crowd is always pumped.”

Soon-to-open State Theatreshows off renovations

PORTLAND — After a $1.5 million renovation that included new seats, new plaster, new paint, new carpet, and new lights and sound equipment, the 81-year-old State Theatre is ready for its reopening on Friday with a sold out show by My Morning Jacket.

The theater, which has been closed since 2006, was opened for a press tour this morning to show off some of the renovations.

The ones most visible were the new seats in the lower section of the theater. The sloped section of the floor is covered with rows of permanent red padded theater seats with arms, while the theater’s previous operator had some of the sloped area left bare for standing room.