The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

Here at The Times, we don't cover news from Walla Walla all that much, but an announcement Monday from that little village down the road got my attention.

I'm old enough to remember Woodstock, and Walla Walla is going to get its version of that landmark music festival this summer. (Woodstock happened in 1969 on the weekend of my 14th birthday, and no, I wasn't there.) Exactly 46 years after Woodstock (again on the weekend of my birthday; you can do the math), as many as 40,000 people are expected to converge on Walla Walla for an outdoor music festival featuring the bands Mumford and Sons and Foo Fighters, along with many other performers. It's called the Gentlemen of the Road Tour Stopover Festival.

If you're half my age, you definitely know who these bands are. I know who they are, and I'm twice that old.

Mumford and Sons is a British band whose lead singer is a guy called Marcus Mumford, who likes to wear vests. Wikipedia calls them a "folk-rock band," presumably because they have a banjo player. Mumford and Sons won the 2013 Album of the Year Grammy Award for their album called "Babel." Their biggest hit is a song called "Little Lion Man."

Foo Fighters was formed in Seattle in 1994 by Dave Grohl, who was the drummer for Nirvana, until the death of that band's leader, Kurt Cobain. Foo Fighters have won four Grammy Awards for Best Rock Album.

According to the organizers, the Stopover Festivals are aimed at performing in towns "not normally frequented by touring bands in busses or splitter vans." Besides Walla Walla, Stopover Festivals will be held this summer in Seaside Heights, N.J.; Waverly, Iowa; Aviemore, Scotland; and Salida, Colo. This is the third summer that Mumford and Sons has organized Stopover festivals in small towns. (They were held in 2012 and 2013, with a year off last year.)

The Gentlemen of the Road Stopover Festival will take over Walla Walla on August 14 and 15. As many as 20 bands and performers will play on a main stage at the Whitman College athletic fields, and on a smaller stage downtown.

According to a press release issued Monday, the Veterans' Memorial Golf Course will be closed that weekend so that visitors to Walla Walla can camp there, walking distance to the venues.

This is a big deal. The Stopover Festival has the potential to bring a lot of visitors to the Touchet Valley, which I'm sure will include folks who would prefer a nice hotel room in a "quaint little town" a few miles away to camping on a fairway. Leaders in Walla Walla expect a multi-million-dollar economic boost there from the festival.

Tickets for the festival go on sale Friday, and they cost $199 for the weekend. More information can be found at gentlemenoftheroad.com.