In what has become a recent spike in charitable events at the Fulton 55 downtown, the venue hosted one of its largest ever collections of local performers last Saturday.
“For the Love of Coffee” was an event dedicated to supporting Leo Rios and his micro roasting business, Café Corazon. The festival showcased the talents of Fierce Creatures, Strange Vine, Patrick Contreras, Gayle & the Bowties, Coast Jumper, Goodbye Texas and much more.
“They’re definitely my favorite place to get coffee. The prices are great and the coffee is excellent,” said Amanda Valdez, lead singer of Fierce Creatures. “And they’re just really good people.”
Saturday was band’s final performance with their longtime guitarist, MathR. “I know he wants to keep putting on events like this. I think he wants to create his own business,” said Valdez.
MathR, who persuaded the majority of the performers into contributing their time to the cherity event, is now pursuing a solo project. “I’ve been working on my own music lately and I’m going to perform here at Fulton 55 on October 31,” said MathR.
Fierce Creatures has seen several departures during the past several months. Still, the band remains optimistic about their future as one of Fresno’s most popular acts.
“We’re going to try,” said Valdez. “We kind of don’t know exactly what’s going to happen ourselves. But we’re going to be really positive about it.”
As a prominent supporter of local charities, Patrick Contreras, Fresno’s definitive electric violinist, was honored to perform on behalf of Café Corazon.
“I’ve been having coffee from Leo since he was back at Yoshi Now when he first started. I’ve followed him for so long that the guy’s like another cousin or something,” said Contreras. “Now I go at least once or twice a week to the Tower location.”
The immensely popular Strange Vine was also on hand to support the micro roaster. The two-man band made a special exception to their rule against performing back to back at the Fulton 55 venue.
“For us, we just played here last week and we very rarely play in the same town within a one month period,” said Strange Vine’s drummer, vocalist and keyboardist, Ian Blesse. “But we really like Leo and we like what he’s done so we wanted to try and get on it and do what we can to help out a little bit.”
This was a popular sentiment amongst the many musicians on hand for the concert. The exceedingly talented vocalist, Abigail Nolte of Gayle & the Bowties reaffirmed the feeling.
“We love Leo and we love Café Corazon. Good coffee and good music go hand in hand. So a good cause makes it even better,” said Nolte. “It’s a great collaboration.”
Although the event surrounded the community’s love of coffee, the Relay for Life cancer charity was also on hand to accept donations
Jennifer Boyd, a Relay for Life committee member and cancer survivor was pleased to receive special recognition for their generous cause. “For every hundred dollars we raise, we can provide eight round trips for a cancer patient that might not be able to get to their treatments otherwise,” said Boyd.
“It’s all about personal relationships,” said Café Corazon’s owner and roaster, Leo Rios. “I decided to help her in her efforts.”
With the success of Saturday’s nearly sold-out event, Rios expressed interest in turning the community event into an annual festival. “That’s what we’re thinking. It seems to be very successful and everybody really likes it,” said Rios.
