What to do in Philly June 7-13: Pride Parade, West Philly Porchfest, the Wailers

Sticky weather has arrived, and with it, so have festivals. This weekend alone brings Pride, Odunde, Porchfest, Fishtown’s Festivale, and VegFest to Philly’s streets.

Northern Liberties’ Piazza — the once-buzzing, now quiet retail/residential center by North Second Street — is getting a reboot of sorts this Saturday, when its pod park opens. There are dozens of food and drink vendors, a gym, a toy store, a forthcoming jungle gym, and more in 35,000-square-foot space. Here’s everything else you should expect if you visit.

Further afield, in Huntingdon Valley, there’s a cousin of sorts to the Devon Horse Show: The June Fete. The socialite soiree-turned-family fair has been raising money for Abington Hospital since 1913. Grace Dickinson profiles the history and the highlights of this beloved Montco tradition.

Finally, there’s the shore calendar — including New Year’s in July (with the Mummers) and the LPGA Classic — for those of you driving to Jersey this weekend. Enjoy!

— Jenn Ladd (@jrladd, jladd@inquirer.com)

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June is Pride Month, and it kicks off in full spirit this weekend, starting with a giant block party at 12th and Locust on Friday. Later in the weekend, a colorful parade of floats, flag throwers, and other entertainment follows, starting at 13th and Locust — the epicenter of the Gayborhood. The festivities conclude with a massive festival at Penn’s Landing, where food, drinks, and dancing await. This year’s Pride festivities pay special tribute to the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. — Grace Dickinson

Block party: 6 p.m., Friday, 12th and Locust Streets; Parade: 11 a.m., Sunday, 13th and Locust Streets, free; festival tickets: $10-$15, 215-875-9288, phillygaypride.org

Race through the Pride Day Parade route before the floats and performers flood the streets. Participants will jog past the Liberty Bell and Independence Mall before reaching Penn’s Landing. The 1.5-mile fun run concludes here, while 5K runners will loop back to the William Way LGBT Community Center to greet the start of the official parade. — G.D.

9 to 11 a.m., Sunday, 12th and Locust Streets, $25-$50, phillypriderun.org

Browse a selection of rare works by Oscar Wilde and other famous LGBTQ authors inside the Rare Book Department of the city’s largest library. The event welcomes participants ages 13 and older to take a step back in time through both printed and handwritten materials. — G.D.

2 to 3 p.m., Saturday, Parkway Central Library, 1901 Vine St., 3rd Floor, free with registration, 215-686-5416, libwww.freelibrary.org

Catch free musical performances on dozens of West Philadelphia’s porches during the fourth annual Porchfest. The afternoon festival seeks to strengthen and celebrate community through the joy of live music. Although anyone can host or play a show, many porches and performers have already committed; find a map with both online. — G.D.

Noon to 6 p.m., Saturday, various locations, westphillyporchfest.com

For a plant-based feast, head to VegFest, returning for a second year to Queen Village, where it sets up along Bainbridge Street between Third and Fifth Streets. Music, educational speakers, and cooking demos are scheduled throughout the day, and dozens of vendors and foods trucks will dish out vegan and vegetarian eats. Bring your open-minded meat-eating friends. — G.D.

11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday, Bainbridge Green, 300-500 Bainbridge St., free, facebook.com/pg/PhiladelphiaVegFest

Since 1975, this festival has attracted tens of thousands to Graduate Hospital to enjoy African, Caribbean, and American food; to dance, shop, and celebrate in the streets; and to process to the Schuylkill to make an offering of fruit and flowers to Oshun, the Yoruba goddess of the river. Doug E. Fresh headlines this year’s festival. Catch him on the Queen Lois Stage (named after Odunde cofounder Lois Fernandez) at 6:45 p.m. — Jenn Ladd

Sunday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., South Street from 20th to 23rd Streets, free, odundefestival.org

Want to learn how to obtain new plants from the ones you already own? Come out to the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s Meadowbrook Farm to learn about propagation and cutting techniques so that you can expand your greenery collection and share with your friends. This is part of PHS’ Thursdays Gardening Series. — G.D.

6 to 7 p.m. Thursday, PHS Meadowbrook Farm, 1633 Washington Lane, Jenkintown, $20-$25, 215-988-8800, phsonline.org

Catch an international selection of short films and then vote for your favorite at this slam, presented by the Madlab Post inside the Bok. Screenings include Iranian director Omid Shams’ roadside drama Birthday Night and storyboard artist Arna Selznick’s animated The Most Magnificent Thing, starring Whoopi Goldberg, Alison Pil, and Lilly Bartlam. The short with the most votes will move on to the next round.

1 p.m. Saturday, Bok Building, 1901 S. 9th St., $10, squareup.com/store/the-madlab-post

Back in the ’80s, when the Spectrum was a favorite tour stop, Ronnie James Dio regularly engaged in some of rock’s most over-the-top onstage spectacle — everything from slaying a giant dragon to roaming a dry-ice-shrouded ancient Egypt, complete with animatronic sphinx. So it’s fully in keeping with Dio’s overloaded aesthetic that the diminutive metal icon should return from the grave in holographic form. The singer, who died of cancer in 2010, will be summoned from the Uncanny Valley to take the stage at the Keswick on Friday, backed by former band members. It should allow audiences to approximate the experience of hearing Dio’s powerhouse voice belting out solo and Black Sabbath classics (albeit in a setting pitched somewhere between a tribute band and a theme park ride). With Jizzy Pearl’s Love/Hate. — Shaun Brady

8 p.m., Friday, Keswick Theatre, 291 N. Keswick Ave., Glenside, $39.50-$75, 215-572-7650, keswicktheatre.com

Amy Rigby took so long between albums that you could almost forget how good she is. Well, not really, even if there was a 13-year gap before last year’s excellent The Old Guys, an astute and heartfelt set of rock songs, inspired in part by famous dudes like Bob Dylan, Philip Roth, and Robert Altman, by one of America’s best, most underrated songwriters. Since then, she has released terrific protest and tribute tunes — titled “The President Can’t Read” and “Tom Petty Karaoke,” respectively — and even better, announced the book she’s been writing (which explains why it took so long between records) is called Girl To City: A Memoir and is coming out in October. She’s in Manayunk on Friday, with the Kevin Hanson Duo opening. — Dan DeLuca

9 p.m., Friday, Dawson Street Pub, 100 Dawson St., $10, 215-482-5677, dawsonstreetpub.com

A free nine-hour festival in downtown Wayne on the Main Line with two stages and a strong, musically varied lineup. Reggae stalwarts the Wailers headline, and the bill also includes New Orleans funk-brass band Bonerama, hip-hop harp combo Kuf Knotz and Christine Elise, rising Philly rocker Ali Awan, raucous rock-and-roll brother act Marah, bluegrass standouts Man About a Horse, alto-sax woman Vanessa Collier, and Philly guitarist-songwriter Mutlu. Take the train! — D.D.

2 to 11 p.m., Saturday, North Wayne and West avenues, Wayne, free, waynemusicfestival.com

Since their brilliant debut, 2009’s Hometowns, Toronto’s the Rural Alberta Advantage have stayed true to their mission: Each of their four albums features dramatic, hard-strummed acoustic guitars anchoring Nils Edenloff’s frayed vocals. Hometowns’s revved-up songs were heavily indebted to Neutral Milk Hotel — not a bad thing at all, but something the band grew beyond by the time of 2017’s The Wild, which added more keyboards and electric guitars to the mix. The trio comes to Boot & Saddle to road test new material for The Wild’s successor. — Steve Klinge

8:30 p.m., Saturday, Boot & Saddle, 1131 S. Broad St., $17, 267-639-4528, bootandsaddlephilly.com

Like forebears such as the Band and contemporaries such as artist-producer Steve Dawson, Matt Andersen is a Canadian with a deep affinity for American roots music. And on the new Halfway Home by Morning, produced by Dawson in Nashville, the soul-blues veteran continues to show his mastery of it. On the album’s 13 tracks (including a smoldering ballad with cowriter Amy Helm), the singer-guitarist‘s bear of a voice matches the warmth and expressiveness of the music. Meanwhile, amid sounds that range from roadhouse R&B to gentle folk, the background vocals of the McCrary Sisters inject some gospel spirit that contributes to the ultimate uplift of it all. — Nick Cristiano

7:30 p.m., Tuesday, the Locks at Sona, 4417 Main St., Manayunk, $12 and $18, 484-374-0481, thelocksmusic.com

Along with Madness, the Selecter, and the English Beat, the Specials were one of the leading lights of the second wave ska movement, in which typically interracial British bands drew inspiration from Jamaican music, blending it with punk-rock energy and often espousing an antiracist, anti-fascist message. Forty years after releasing “Gangsters,” their first single on the 2 Tone label, the Specials are touring behind Encore, their first album of new material since 2000. The current lineup includes three original members, though not principal songwriter Jerry Dammers. — D.D.

8 p.m., Tuesday, Theater of Living Arts, 322 South St., $39.50, 215-922-1011, tlaphilly.com