Outstanding bay area performers take the Freight stage to raise funds for hurricane disaster victims. Proceeds from the concert will be donated to the Jazz Foundation of America, which has been providing legal, financial, and job assistance, as well as nearly $100,000 worth of donated instruments, to performers who were victims of the hurricane.

When Wake the Dead takes the stage Celtic tunes and Grateful Dead classics meet and take flight. The eclectic group includes Maureen Brennan on harp, Cindy Browne on bass, Danny Carnahan on vocals, fiddle, octave mandolin, and guitar, Kevin Carr on uilleann (Irish bellows) pipes, fiddle, and whistles, Sylvia Herold on vocals, Paul Kotapish on mandolin, octave mandolin, guitar, and National steel guitar, Bobbi Nikles on violin, and Joe Craven on percussion, performing seamless medleys like "Banks of Lough Gowna/The Reunion/Friend of the Devil," "My Marianne/The Wheel" and "Lord Inchiquin/Sugaree."

Eric and Suzy Thompson are two of the Bay Area folk music scene's most versatile stars. Key members of many of the area's best-known folk groups past and present, including the Blue Flame String Band, Graineog Ceilidh Band, the Aux Cajunals, Thompson's String Ticklers and Bluegrass Intentions, flatpicking maestro Eric and fiddler and vocalist extraordinaire Suzy play just about anything, from bluegrass to Cajun to Irish traditional to Greek rembetika -- and they do it with fire, verve, and finesse to spare.

Drummer, body percussionist and rhythm dancer, Keith Terry is known for bringing together music, dance, and theater in a diverse artistic vision full of hand-clapping, palm-rubbing, cheek-popping, chest-whomping rhythm. He's often seen on the Freight stage in all sorts of memorable guises, from founder of Slammin', an a capella extravaganza of vocals, beat boxing and body music, to ringmaster of the musical carnival known as the Circus Band Extraordinaire

Driving stringband music, sweet country harmonies, and red-hot buckdancing: the Stairwell Sisters offer all this and more when they bring their passion for old-time country songs and rowdy fiddle tunes to the Freight for a wild, good-time show. Energetic musicianship and tight vocal arrangements are the order of the hour when Lisa Berman (dobro), Stephanie Prausnitz (fiddle), Evie Ladin (clawhammer banjo and clogging), Martha Hawthorne (bass), and Sue Sandlin (guitar and tiple) take the stage.