Irish at Riverplex

The Pittsburgh Irish Festival used to be about Irish balladeers and bands doing jigs and reels.

These days, you'll still find guys telling stories with acoustic guitars, but director Nan Krushinski continues to refresh the festival with young talent, like Celtic rock bands from Canada. Watch for the likes of Pogey and the Glengarry Bhouys, along with Ireland's poppy Screaming Orphans, when the festival moves into Riverplex at Sandcastle, this weekend.

Along with music and Irish food and beer, there will be Gaelic football, rowing and hurling.

Hours are 4 p.m.-midnight Friday; 11 a.m.-midnight Saturday; and 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday.

For more details, see "Irish Festival: Fiddling, drinking and hurling".

Fair days

More than 100 regional and national craft artists converge in Mellon Park this weekend for the 39th annual A Fair in the Park, presented by The Craftsmen's Guild of Pittsburgh.

The festival, rated one of Sunshine Artist magazine's top 100 art shows nationwide, prides itself in high quality crafts and art, along with children's activities, food vendors and a music schedule ranging from the funk of the Poogie Bell Band to the folk-pop of Boca Chica.

For the second year, The Pittsburgh Society of Sculptors will create an outdoor sculpture exhibition in the Rose Garden, and watch for Alberto Almarza offering a demonstration/performance of his process of creating Pok Pottery, a transformation of local natural, unrefined clay into artwork.

Here is the music schedule:

Saturday

Noon-1 p.m.: Cellofourte

2-3 p.m.: Sonji

3-4 p.m.: Welcome Abraham

5-6 p.m.: Samba Pittsburgh

Sunday

Noon-1:30 p.m.: Poogie Bell Band

3-4 p.m.: Boca Chica

Hours are 1-7 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday; and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free. The fair is adjacent to the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts.

-- Scott Mervis

Taps and taps

Generally speaking, it is only River City Brass Band conductor Denis Colwell who dances around in concerts -- on the podium.

But for the group's season-opening concerts, "Shall We Dance," tap dancer Shelly Oliver is raising the level just a bit.

She has performed with Savion Glover, Buster Brown, Gregory Hines and more.

She'll do so on stage with RCBB at 8 tonight at Gateway High School in Monroeville, 8 p.m. Friday at Carson Middle School, McCandless, and next week at the Byham Theater, and Upper St. Clair among others. Call 1-800-292-7222 for more venues and tickets.

-- Andrew Druckenbrod

Jazz at Frick

The First Fridays at the Frick summer music series closes its season with one of Pittsburgh's favorite jazz sons -- pianist David Budway.

The lineup includes his sister, singer Maureen Budway, along with Ron Affif on guitar, Eric Revis on bass and E.J. Strickland on drums.

Budway, who grew up in Point Breeze and is rooted musically in both classical and jazz tradition, has been a longtime staple on the local jazz scene. He made the move to New York in 1997 and has been playing with Jeff "Tain" Watts and Regina Carter and has been touring with Liza Minnelli.

Budway is also at work on a new record -- "Strike Up the Bud."

The performance starts Friday at 7 p.m. on the Frick Art & Historical Center grounds in Point Breeze. It's free, but a $5 donation per adult is suggested.

-- Adrian McCoy

Making twigs

The Pittsburgh Glass Center will be filled with twigs on Friday night. Glass ones. Susan Taylor Glasgow and other artists are making hundreds of them for a giant glass bird's nest from 6 to 9 p.m. during PGC's free open house Hot Jam and Penn Avenue Arts Initiative's Unblurred event.

Glasgow is making twigs for her upcoming exhibition called "Absence of Body," opening Oct. 3. Visitors can sponsor an artist to make a twig in honor of someone and see it being made that night, for $50 or $75. Proceeds go to the Glass Center and Bethlehem Haven, a local women's shelter. The event is free and open to the public.

Imagining peace

"Remembering Hiroshima: Imagining Peace," a month of activities marking the World War II nuclear bombing of two Japanese cities, kicks off from 5:30 to 9 pm. Friday at 709 Penn Gallery, 709 Penn Ave., Downtown.

Posters from the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum will be featured, supplemented by artwork by Japanese children, drawings by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonists, and works by Pittsburgh artists Tavia LaFollette and Emily Laychak. Admission to the reception is free, as well as to the exhibition, which runs through Sept. 27.

Hours are 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays. For information, visit www.RememberingHiroshima.org.

-- Mary Thomas

'Kryptonite' kids

It's hard to define exactly what mainstream rock is in 2008, but it seems like 3 Doors Down is a pretty good guess.

The Mississippi band, not exactly challenging Radiohead or Gnarls Barkley in terms of innovation, holds tight with a post-grunge, post-Pearl Jam sound it broke through with earlier this decade with hits like "Kryptonite" and "When I'm Gone." The latest from 3 Doors Down is a new self-titled album that debuted at No. 1 on the charts and includes "Citizen/Soldier," a tribute to the National Guard, fitting with the band's sturdy support-the-troops stance.

3 Doors Down is joined by Hinder, the Oklahoma hard-rockers set to release their second album in November, Finger Eleven and American Bang.

The show is Sunday at 6:30 p.m. at the Post-Gazette Pavilion. Tickets are $19 to $69. Call 412-323-1919.

-- Scott Mervis

Driven to tears

You'll be able to smell this event long before you get to it. The Pennsylvania Simply Sweet Onion Festival peels into the Butler Fairgrounds on Route 422 on Sunday to celebrate the onion and its local growers and to benefit local food banks.

The musical draw is country band Diamond Rio, best known for the hits "One More Day," "I Believe" and "Meet in the Middle."

Activities include a children's corner, car cruise, farmer's market, cooking demonstrations, an eating contest, exhibits, crafts and food.

It runs from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tickets are $18. Call 724-287-5778.

Vintage metal

If you have ever been casually driving along when some enormous behemoth of a semi blows past you, belching smoke, your thought process probably goes something like this: a) Jerk; b) There's no way that truck's exhaust system passes inspection; c) That thing's ancient. It belongs in a museum.

Actually, you probably think "junk yard" instead of "museum," but in order to transition well into my next sentence, let's stick with museum.

Because, hey! That's where you can go see it! It didn't pass inspection and that vintage bunch of metal is now at the Pennsylvania Trolly Museum. (See why "junk yard" wouldn't work?)

On Sunday, the 19th annual Trucks & Trolleys event will feature vintage trucks, 30 trolleys, rides on a diesel locomotive and a World War II encampment with uniformed interpreters ... which seems just a little random but, hey, the more the merrier.

The fun runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum, 1 Museum Road, Washington, Pa. Cost is $7 adults, $6 seniors, $4 kids ages 3-15. Visit www.pa-trolley.org or call 724-228-9256.

-- Kate McCaffery

• It has been called "yoga's answer to Cirque de Soleil." Pittsburghers can find out for themselves when London's Tripsichore Yoga brings its combination of lyrical dance and yogic spirituality to the Attack Theatre studio at 4805 Penn Ave., Garfield, Saturday at 8 p.m. Tickets: $25 in advance, $35 at the door. 412-401-4444 or www.schoolhouseyoga.com. The Schoolhouse Yoga will also sponsor several workshops at its Strip District location, including Ashtanga Primary Series (Saturday noon), Tripsichore Sun Salutations (Saturday 2 p.m.) and a Choreography Workshop (Sunday noon). All workshops are $65.

• Saturday is Kids Day at the National Aviary on the North Side, and that means kids under 12 get in free and can take part in activities from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. including teddy bear checkups and crafts.