(6.9) Saturday’s WaterFire comprises a weird amalgam of the Netroots Nation, Portuguese heritage, and a Gaspee historical reenactment (not the burning part, the plotting and leaving part). Check out the WaterFire website for details and complete explanation. There are a few unusual elements in Saturday’s schedule. First there’s the whole Gaspee thang commemorating the night when approximately 70 men rowed out from Providence in eight long boats on June 9th in 1772 to attack the Gaspee and fired the first shot of the Revolutionary War.

To commemorate this event, members of the Buzzards Bay Rowing Club and the Azorean Rowing Club, are passing through the fires at 10pm with their whaling boats.  Whaling boats are similar to the original long-boats and we thank them for their participation.  The Pawtuxet Rangers Fife and Drum Corps will be on the Crawford Street Bridge at 10:10 pm playing as the longboats pass beneath them on their way to Namquid Point. The Pawtuxet Rangers were commissioned in 1774 to help protect the ports, ships, and shoreline of RI against the Royal Navy.

And Sabin’s Tavern comes to life.

One block from the original site of Sabin’s Tavern we are creating the New Sabin’s Tavern in cooperation with the Wild Colonial at the intersection of South Water Street and Power Street. Sample period liquors and fine ales in a historic site and witness a recreation of this historic debate among the citizens of Providence.  Performances will be during the evening from 9pm on at the high table out front by Power Street.

So actors have been hired to pretend they are drinking and arguing? If this is who I think it is, they have been researching their roles assiduously.

Sunset 8:24pm, WaterFire, Saturday, June 9, downtown along the river