Yet another Thursday, yet another Sounds & Sights.

Billy Brandt and Sarana Verlin were playing by the railroad tracks.

Their percussionist listened very intently to his instrument.

The Danny James Band kept the Sylvan Building entertained.

The Bonfire Poets brought a crowd to the street in front of the police station. Just in case they forgot what they were doing and what day it was, they had a helpful sign to remind them.

There was even a little bit of dancing.

Because the weather was actually pleasant — not brutally humid — plenty of people showed up to enjoy downtown Chelsea.

Fred van Reesma and his brother Peter were playing in the alley by the barbershop.

This is Peter:

And this is Fred:

Jen & The Koppins were next to the courthouse. They didn’t have a court date or anything; they were supposed to play there.

That’s Jen in the hat. The rest are the Koppins. They drew a good crowd.

They were playing in the shade of the courthouse while the crowd was sitting in the sunlight, so one song they played must have been for the crowd:

The drumming Koppin enjoyed his job.

The final evening of the Sounds & Sights Festival featured the classic fun of the Soul Men, an excellent Blues Brothers Tribute Band. (If you haven’t seen the Blues Brothers movie…WHY NOT?! Go watch it. Immediately.)

The Soul Men encouraged audience participation.

As usual, the audience participation proved one key fact: the audience is the audience for a reason. Still, everybody had a good time.

The festival ended with a performance by Fifty Amp Fuse, a surprisingly popular Detroit-area cover band.

At one point a band member stepped on a nail and cried out in pain.

Wait…never mind. He was just singing. In fact, the festival had exactly zero stepping-on-nail incidents. Safety first!

After a few songs, the band invited Parks & Recreation star Aubrey Plaza to sing with them.

Okay, okay. That’s not Aubrey Plaza, but maybe she’s a synonym for Aubrey Plaza. Maybe she’s Aubrey Park, or Aubrey Square, or Aubrey Village Green.

As usual, Fifty Amp Fuse packed the dance floor. Or, more appropriately, the move around somewhat rhythmically floor.

The festival continued into its second day. Like the last couple weeks, it was yet another very warm day. Have I mentioned how I feel about very warm weather? Here’s how I feel about very warm weather: ugh.

Q: How do you know when hot humid summer weather has worn out its welcome?
A: When it exists.

During the afternoon there was a kids zone with a variety of activities available for the younger set. As part of the kids zone, the Chelsea Area Fire Authority sent a fire truck for kids to explore.

As an aside, I like the name Chelsea Area Fire Authority. It makes me imagine a stern man dressed like a judge or a general (or something equally authoritative) very sternly telling the fire to stop its unauthorized burning at once. (As the above picture shows, CAFA is actually staffed with regular firefighters who, by the way, do an excellent job.)

Friday evening included the annual classic car show, an event that started small but has grown considerably over the last couple years.

If the C+C Music Factory had visited the car show, they would have written a song called Things That Make You Go Vroom.

There was also a small art market just off Main Street.

When I made my way into the social tent — which, if we’re going to be honest, is just a nice (if not slightly euphemistic) way of saying beer tent — I was surprised to find Roary, the mascot of the Detroit Lions.

He was busy making plenty of new friends, but he did stop to let me know he appreciated my beard. Well, he didn’t actually say those words — being a mascot, he didn’t say any words — but his gestures were positive.

Before long, the Twistin’ Tarantulas took the stage. The lead singer played the upright bass, and any band that features an upright bass is okay by me.

The guitar player looked suspiciously like the Chelsea High School girls basketball coach.

If you don’t believe me, here’s a photo of the basketball coach:

If they’re not related, they should be.

The Twistin’ Tarantulas were very energetic and a lot of fun, and not nearly as scary as you might think after seeing this photo:

To close out the evening, The Sun Messengers took the stage.

The crowd enjoyed dancing to the upbeat music of The Sun Messengers.

When the keyboard player noticed my camera, he smiled for a photo while he was playing.

Chelsea’s Sounds & Sights Festival started on Thursday.  The Chelsea House Orchestra performed to open the festival.

The Ben Daniels Band started the festivities at the social tent.

Theo Katzman took the stage next.

Theo Katzman’s keyboard player was very happy to be there.

Finally, The Macpodz closed out Thursday night with a rousing set.

The Macpodz provided my best photo of the festival:

That’s the photo I’ll remember from this weekend.

If you haven’t yet read Act I, obviously you’ve been wasting time on the internet. Stop trying to figure out why Google+ needs to exist and go read Act I before you read the rest of this post.

All done? Okay then, let’s go.

As you know, Act I ended with Joseph participating in a colorful song and dance number while in prison. What? Do I really need to say this again? Okay: in musicals, that sort of thing is perfectly normal.  Just go with it.  Give your suspension of disbelief the workout it obviously needs.

Anyway, when  the curtain rose on Act II, we were introduced to Pharaoh. The typical portrayal of most pharaohs tends to be on the stern side, probably because pharaohs tended to be on the stern side. However, this musical gives Pharaoh a bit of a different image.

Yes, that’s Pharaoh Elvis.  Nero fiddled while Rome burned; Pharaoh Elvis sang with sideburns.

It turned out Pharaoh was All Shook Up due to a series of strange dreams. Hey, wait.  Strange dreams?  Wasn’t there a main character with strange dream experience on his resume? Yeah, I think there was.

Pharaoh didn’t know about Joseph, but his butler did.  Remember the butler from Act I? Just as Joseph said, the butler got out of prison and made it back on the job, and when Pharaoh started singing about his problematic dreams, the butler butled Joseph onto the scene.  Before long, Joseph had the dreams interpreted — they foreshadowed a time of plenty followed by a time of famine — and Pharaoh repaid him by making him Vice Pharaoh.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Joseph’s father and brothers were feeling the effects of that famine. What do you do when you’re experiencing great hardship in a musical? Come on, people. You should know the answer to that by now.

This time the sadness involved berets and French accents. Am I resisting the temptation to make surrender jokes right now? Yes. Yes I am. Let’s move on.

After singing their sad French song, the brothers heard that Egypt had food available. This, of course, was due to Vice Pharaoh Joseph’s savvy planning, but since they hadn’t yet signed up for Twitter, Joseph’s brothers didn’t know he was a prominent government official in Egypt. (Joseph’s actual tweet: “Just went from prisoner to govt man in 5 mins. Doesn’t it usually happen the other way around? LOL! I’m just playin, @PharaohElvis.”)

In hungry desperation, the brothers traveled to Egypt to buy food. And…hey, check it out! Joseph’s brothers are bowing down to him! They still don’t know it’s him, of course, but that doesn’t matter. The dreams still came true.

You’ll note that Joseph’s helpful dream illustrators made the trip to Egypt to help him out again. They’re good people.

Joseph was happy to see his dreams coming true, but since his brothers still didn’t know it was him, he still wanted to have some fun with them. I guess that’s understandable, what with their selling him into slavery and all. So, after selling them sacks of food, he arranged to have one of his fancy-pants super-duper shiny gold goblets put in his youngest brother’s sack of food. Then, when they were preparing to leave, he accused them of stealing his fancy-pants super-duper shiny gold goblet and — of course — found it in Benjamin’s sack of food.

This caused the brothers great consternation because Benjamin was Jacob’s other favorite son, and they weren’t exactly thrilled about going home down yet another one of his favorite sons. To avoid that unpleasant prospect, they begged Joseph for mercy.

Of course, since he was the one facing hard time in the Egyptian slammer, Benjamin was a little bit interested in mercy, too.

Joseph’s administrative assistants put together some choreography to accompany the brothers’ begging.

Somewhere in the process of pleading Benjamin’s case, the brothers slipped into a calypso mood.

After hearing his brothers pleas for mercy, Joseph began to think it might be time for him to reveal his identity to his brothers. But since nobody ever just thinks in a musical, Joseph sang about it.

You’d think his brothers would have been able to hear what he was singing, but somehow they missed it. They were probably busy playing Angry Birds.

Having worked out his anxiety through song, Joseph finally let his brothers know he wasn’t just some nameless bureaucrat. Joseph’s administrative assistants assisted in this, too.

His dream illustrators got in on the big reveal, too.

Having finally reconciled with his brothers, Joseph somehow got his fancy long-winded coat back. I’m pretty sure that part wasn’t Biblical — I don’t recall his coat floating down from the sky and settling on his shoulders — but it made for a nice conclusion and a fun visual.

With his coat back in place, Joseph and his brothers wrapped up the final song so they could get back to their smartphones. What, you think Joseph wouldn’t tweet big news like that? (Actual tweet: “Punk’d my bros pretty good. They thought Ben would go to jail! Almost didn’t keep a straight face. Bet they don’t sell me again.”)

There was no word as to what the narrators were going to do once the story ended.  Did they have other stories to narrate, or were they unemployed?  Or were they going to keep following Joseph around and narrating his story even if nobody paid attention?  Inquiring minds want to know.  Inquiring minds also want to know why narrate isn’t spelled narrarate, because that’s how I’ve always pronounced it.

Anyway, this brings us to the end of Joseph. If you enjoyed this…fantastic.  If you didn’t, then you should go to the next CAP production so you don’t have to rely on me for a recap.

Over the weekend, the Chelsea Area Players — not to be confused with the Chelsea Area Playas, which doesn’t actually exist — put on a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. If you never saw that musical done by the professionals, then you never saw Donny Osmond sold into slavery by his brothers.

Anyway, it’s a musical based on the Biblical story of Joseph. As is usually the case, the book is better than the musical, but the musical is still a lot of fun. The CAP did a great job, too. I’m no theater expert — otherwise I’d spell it “theatre” — but I enjoyed the production.

(I took a lot of photos, so I’m splitting this into two blog posts.)

The story began with Joseph hanging out with a group of kids and singing. In the world of musicals, this is perfectly normal.

Eventually the curtain opened, and the three narrators started narrating.

Jacob enjoyed listening to the song describing his successful family business.

Jacob’s family enjoyed singing about his successful family business.

Still, it wasn’t one big happy family. Jacob tended to favor Joseph, a disparity that made his brothers jealous enough to plot his demise.

They couldn’t follow through with their plot that time, though, so they had to settle for watching Joseph show off his snazzy new coat. (This is the coat that’s to blame for the musical’s extremely long title.)

Joseph also irked his brothers with his strange dreams. Well, it wasn’t so much that he had strange dreams, but that he interpreted his dreams to mean that his brothers would one day bow down to him. I can see why that would be problematic for familial relationships.

The kids we saw in the opening photo contributed by illustrating Joseph’s dreams. Fortunately, his brothers harbored no ill will toward them.

Joseph let them know he appreciated their efforts.

Eventually Joseph’s brothers followed through with their plot: they sold him to a “hairy bunch of Ishmaelites,” covered his fancy long-winded coat in blood and returned home to tell their father his favorite son had been killed. Since everybody knows country music is the best vehicle for bad news, the brothers donned cowboy hats and broke the news in an exaggerated twang. (Note: this may or may not be Biblically accurate.  Hint: it’s not.)

Poor, poor Joseph ended up in Egypt, where the hairy bunch of Ishmaelites sold him to a wealthy man named Potiphar.

Sadly, Potiphar’s wife wasn’t committed to their marriage, and Joseph caught her wandering eye.  She worked hard to express her untoward ambitions to Joseph.

Joseph managed to resist her persistent efforts, but she raised enough of a fuss that Potiphar burst onto the scene. Presuming Joseph was to blame for this scandalous behavior, Potiphar sent him to jail.

He responded by singing.

After he finished his song, two more inmates joined his authentic community: the baker and the butler. I know, I know, it’s starting to sound like a game of Clue. Just remember that this story was around long before Clue.

The baker and butler had been having strange dreams, and they wanted Joseph to interpret them into plain English. (Or into plain Whatever Language They Spoke.) He obliged, and as with many situations in musicals, singing and dancing ensued.

(Just a thought: if life actually was like a musical, would we have theatrical productions called talkies? And would we make sarcastic comments about how nobody would ever actually break out into talking in real life? I hope so.)

They were kind enough to let Joseph out of his cell so he could sing and dance properly. They weren’t too kind, though: they wouldn’t remove his shackles.

The first act ended with a colorful flourish.

Be sure to come back for the second act!