When Dana Steinberg visits a night spot to hear live music, she is usually listening more closely than the average audience member.
She evaluates playing ability and crowd response. She considers the band's target audience, and thinks about how they would do in a family atmosphere.
If a band meets her requirements Steinberg might approach the musicians after the show, and invite them to take part in the Reston Concerts on the Town summer music series, which she helps organize.
"I love going to concerts, so I’m always keeping my eye out for good music," Steinberg said. "I was visiting a friend a couple of years ago in Boston and I found this band, Entrain. Wherever I go, it seems I find a band."
It is her love of music that prompted Steinberg to help organize the music series, located at the Reston Town Center. The concert series, on Saturday evenings throughout the summer, is one of three Reston music series scheduled for the coming months. Lake Anne Summer Fun, on Sunday evenings at Lake Anne Plaza, is organized by Miles Stiebel from MSE Productions. Stiebel is also coordinating the Reston Community Center Take a Break Concerts, every Thursday night at three different locations, depending on the month. In June Take a Break will be located at Lake Anne, in July the concerts will be at Reston Town Center and in August they will move to Hunters Woods Shopping Center.
"IT’S VERY EXCITING to go to the shows every week," Steinberg said. "It’s like instant gratification, instant feedback from the crowds."
Stiebel said he tries to create a diverse lineup at the Lake Anne shows. MSE Productions, a Reston-based music and entertainment agency, represents more than 300 different bands with varying musical styles.
"You can go and hear, on one night, the Mystic Warriors who play Andean music with Peruvian pipes," Stiebel said. "It’s a beautiful sound, totally different. Then on another weekend you can see the T-Birds, who do a lot of 1950s and 1960s songs. They’re a show band, they get people up dancing."
Stiebel said concert audiences are diverse as well, with many different people attending the free shows.
"You will see families out there," Stiebel said. "There are elderly couples that come out every week with their lawn chairs. You get college students as well."
The atmosphere at the Town Center concerts, according to Steinberg, is "very relaxed." Entire families — children, parents and grandparents — come and spread out their picnic blankets. Steinberg comes to almost all of the weekly concerts and, from week to week, she sees some of the same faces in the audience.
"People have told me they always come, that they never miss it in the summer," she said.
"People should really take advantage," Stiebel said. "These are free concerts. To see a lot of these bands, people would have to pay a nice price."
THE T-BIRDS, PERFORMING at The Reston Town Center on the fourth of July, play music from artists like Connie Francis, Aretha Franklin and James Brown. And they wear the clothes to match. The audience will see them in pony tails, bobby socks and greased back hair.
"Its a combination of playing rock and roll and putting on a visual show," said guitar-player John Weedon.
Even though they play older songs, Weedon said the members of the T-Birds don’t think of themselves as a nostalgia band.
"This is pretty much just the way we like to play," he said, "the music and the look."
Although they all have second jobs, Weedon said the band is the number one priority for the band members. Weedon, for example, works part time as a computer technician. But in the past he, like all the other band members, has worked as a full-time musician.
The group members are serious about the music they play. Whatever song is being played, they try to stay as close to the original version as possible.
"We’re pretty much sticklers," Weedon said. "We try to get it as close to the original as possible. We don’t do medleys. We take each song as an individual and try to play as close as possible to the person who originally performed the song."
MARIA ISOLINA, ORIGINALLY from Honduras, sings with Sol y Rumba, a band that plays music from throughout Latin America. The full-time singer, with 45 gigs scheduled for May alone, will be playing at Lake Anne on June 27.
She sings different styles of music from throughout Latin America — cumbia, merengue, cha cha — and also the contemporary hits from artists like Ricky Martin, Shakira and Enrique Englesias.
"When Ricky Martin came out with Vida Loca, I just needed to tell people, ‘I play music by Ricky Martin,’ and they’d say, ‘That’s the kind of music we want at our party,’" Isolina said.
She enjoys the pleasant atmosphere at Lake Anne — this will be her fourth or fifth year with the summer concert series — and said the crowds are usually knowledgeable of Latin music. Some of her earliest tunes come from the 1920s and 1930s, and people often ask her how she came to know such old music.
"I grew up listening to it," Isolina tells people. "I’m from Honduras but we used to catch music from Cuba on a short wave radio."
Although she sings music from throughout Latin America, Isolina said some styles are more difficult than others.
"When I sing salsa, it’s so hard to sing," she said. "You have to have that high voice. You have to have been born in Puerto Rico or Cuba, I think. I’m still learning to sing salsa. But for people who sing salsa, it’s harder for them to sing merenge. I sing better merenge."