🤘 Calling all music fans

Happy Friday, Boston!

🚲 Katie here! Reminder: This Sunday is the last day you can ride BlueBikes for free. Get out there and enjoy the long weekend!

👀 What’s on tap today:

• Celtics fight on

• Another restaurant violation

• A coyote chase

Up first...

MUSIC

Boston Calling is back

Boston’s most rockin’ weekend is here. The three-day Boston Calling music festival kicks off today, with a jam-packed lineup and gorgeous weather to boot. The local festival has come a long way since the early days of rocking out on City Hall Plaza in 2013. A decade in, it's been ranked one of the 10 best music festivals in the country.

Here’s what to know ahead of the weekend:

🤘 Boston Calling keeps drawing big names. This year’s headliners are the Foo Fighters, The Lumineers, and Paramore. The Foos have been slated to play at Boston Calling for a few years. They were set to headline the festival in 2020 (which was canceled due to COVID) and had to bow out last year after the death of their drummer, Taylor Hawkins.

🔀 There was a last-minute change to the lineup yesterday. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, one of the bigger acts of the day, needed to back out of tonight’s show due to illness. They’re being replaced by — who else? — the Dropkick Murphys. They’re getting an earlier time slot and The National will now be the last band to perform before the Foos. Get ready to scream “Shipping up to Boston.”

📍 Plenty of local talent is taking the stage, too. Twenty acts from around New England will represent the region on all stages. Bigger names in music with regional roots, like Chelsea Cutler and Noah Kahan, are taking the stage on Friday and Saturday, respectively. If you want a look at new up-and-comers, head to the orange Tivoli Audio stage, where you’ll find Boston-based musicians like Brandie Blaze and Ali McGuirk.

🌮 The food is all local, too. And there’s a lot to choose from. There are 29 food vendors, including 10 newcomers to the festival like Dumpling Daughter and El Jefe’s Taqueria. If you’ve been dreaming about Mamaleh’s loaded latkes fries or The Smoke Shop BBQ’s Ultimate BBQ Cone, don’t worry. They’re coming back this year.

🎟️ If you don’t have a ticket yet, some are still available. If you want a general admission three-day pass to the festival, be prepared to pay a little over $400 with the ticket and fees. Hoping to go for just one day? It’ll cost a little under $200 with fees. But be warned: One-day Saturday GA passes are sold out, so you’ll have to buy from one of their verified resellers. Warning: It will cost more than the face value.

🚇 As for how to get there, driving is not recommended. Street parking will be banned in the area around the Harvard Athletic Complex. Festival goers are encouraged to take the T or bus to the festival, so you may have a packed train or see some stray body glitter on the floor.

CITY

Quick & dirty headlines

☘️ The Celtics keep the hope. The C’s continued to fend off elimination against the Miami Heat with their powerful win at home last night. The Celtics won 110-97, making the series 3 games to 2. Derrick White and Marcus Smart put up impressive performances, especially from the 3 point range, and were the top scorers of the night. The Celtics will try to even the playing field on the road Saturday night. Ahead of Game 4, Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart both said, “Don’t let us get one.” Now we know why.

😳 Health inspectors temporarily closed another restaurant. Dumpling Cafe in Chinatown was ordered to close after their hot water tank broke and they couldn’t wash dishes or hands at a safe temp. The popular restaurant was also storing produce in containers that once held raw chicken, which they’ve been cited for before. There was also a dead rat under the stove. The shutdown comes a few days after health inspectors forced Mexican restaurant Los Amigos to temporarily close their Brighton and West Roxbury locations.

💸 UMass Boston grads are starting post-college life with cash in their pockets. Commencement speaker Rob Hale gifted every newly minted graduate $1,000 cash with their diploma. Cheers erupted as Hale, a Quincy-based billionaire and telecommunications CEO, announced the gift to the 2,500 graduates (watch a video of it here). Hale told the crowd that the gift would be split in two envelopes, with $500 for students to keep and $500 to give away to another person or organization. This isn’t the first time he’s made this gift to a graduating class; he did the same for Quincy College’s class of 2021.

🍹 Mass. restaurants want to-go cocktails to stick around.A pandemic policy that allowed restaurants to sell cocktails for carry-out has proven popular enough that the Massachusetts Restaurant Association is advocating to make it permanent. To-go cocktails are currently allowed in the state thanks to an extension of that COVID-era bill which will lapse in March 2024. But Mass. Rep. Tackey Chan of Boston said the industry needs to come up with some regulations if drinks are going to keep heading out the door after the temporary measure ends.

QUICK QUESTION!

🍹 Do you want to see to-go cocktails stick around?

THINGS TO DO

Long weekend plans

🖼️ Get free admission to MFA and ICA on Memorial Day. The MFA is holding special events on the holiday, including a local art fair.

🥞 Brunch returns to Little Donkey. Try their new dishes like the peanut butter stuffed French toast.

🫐 Kick off summer with a street party hosted by Short Path Distillery in Everett. Catch live music, local food vendors, a blueberry eating contest, and, of course, drinks.

🥾 Build a community while stretching your legs at the Queer and Trans Hiking Fell-ows Sunday hike.

🇺🇸 Take in a Memorial Day parade in Somerville on Sunday. The parade kicks off in Davis Square and ends across from the Veterans Cemetary on Broadway.

ONE LAST THING

Road Runner IRL

Move over, turkeys, there’s a new terror in town: A coyote chased a woman in Boston.

Sue O’Connell, a political commentator for NBC 10 Boston and NECN, was walking her dog Maude around a playground in Fort Hill when she saw what she thought was a dog sleeping in a baseball field. O’Connell realized pretty quickly that it was a coyote when it stood up and started picking up speed toward her and Maude. O’Connell started yelling and left the playground, slamming the iron gate behind her, which temporarily startled the wild animal. But then the coyote lept the baseball field fence and chased O’Connell and little Maude down the street.

The animal stopped the chase after a car drove past, and both O’Connell and Maude are safe and sound. But MassWildlife is reminding people to give coyotes their space and scare them off with bright lights, noise, and spraying them with a hose.

🎓 Thanks for reading! Tom Hanks also gave a commencement speech yesterday and talked to the graduating class about truth and creating a better America. He didn’t give out any cash, though.

🏠 The results are in! 55% of respondents to yesterday’s poll said that they’re staying close to home this Memorial Day weekend. The B-Side will stay close to home by heading to Boston Calling. See you there!

💃 Keep up with us @BostonBSide on IG, TikTok, and Twitter. Send comments and suggestions to [email protected].