Two days, plenty of craft brews and grassy-rooted tunes by more than 20 artists reach across both sides of the Bay for the inaugural Cigar City Brewgrass Festival. The Skipperdome assumes host duties in Tampa with more traditional sounds while Ferg’s opens its stage in St. Pete and broadens into jammy genre-jumping territories. Among the highlights are the ever tight and talented spry-picking local favorites Ramblegrass; Gypsy Wind, their mix of acoustic jazz and upbeat newgrass marked by swinging Django appeal and driven by the pretty soprano intones of lead singer/flutist Kristen Holloway; and Dayton jam rock quartet The Werks, adding some psych rock, funk and electro to the weekend’s sonic equation. Artists at large perform impromptu sit-ins both dates and include guitarist Bobby Lee Rodgers, fiddler Bobby Britt, pedal steel player Dave Easley and mandolin extraordinaire Fil Pate.
Cigar City Brewgrass Festival Details: Gypsy Wind, The Josh Daniel/Mark Schimick Project, Ramblegrass, Applebutter Express, Town Mountain, Oak Hay, Christie Lenee, Reina Collins, Greg Holt, Kenny Stadelman, Este Loves, Sat., March 14, 4 p.m., Skipper’s Smokehouse, Tampa; and The Werks, Zoogma, Eddie Roberts West Coast Sounds, Ramblegrass, Ella Jet Music, Holey Miss Moley, Ajeva, Sun., March 15, 4 p.m., Ferg’s Sports Bar & Grill, St. Petersburg, $20 advance per day/$25 dos.