The beat went on at Port St. Lucie’s third annual International Fest, which attracted hundreds of visitors to Walton & One on Nov. 22.
This year’s free fest – held in eastern Port St. Lucie since 2023 – featured the return of various amenities, including a global fashion exhibit in the MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Event Center interior and worldly food booths around the event center campus. City employees and volunteers also continued giving surveys to inform future events.
The campus also made room for athletes, human and canine alike, with more sports from around the English-speaking world to complement the buildout of the new $80 million soccer stadium due early 2027.
The fest kicked off with dachshunds racing in heats between 3 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. and Highland games held by the Foundation for Scottish Athletics. (They first held games at the March 15 St. Patrick’s Day celebration.)
Those activities gave way to rugger scrums of the Treasure Coast Junior Armada Rugby Club, then batting and pitching demonstrations for children given by the St. Lucie Cricket and Sports Association, Inc.
Among debut appearances at the festival, the Ukrainian Association of Florida co-founders Dmytro and Natalia Bozhko presented a booth adorned with picture books and wheat stalks. (European Union countries harvested most of their durum wheat from Ukraine since 2018, according to agricultural news source APK-Inform.)
Dmytro Bozhko called his booth’s inclusion in this year’s International Fest a “miracle.” He added: “I got an email a couple of months ago,” where city organizers noted the Association’s activity at West Palm Beach street fairs every August since 2022.
“I would love to see more representation of Ukraine,” Dmytro said of future Port St. Lucie festivals. He also mentioned other contributions like performances by the Deerfield Beach-based Kryla Dance Theater and the fashion exhibit’s inclusion of sylyanka, or traditional embroidered necklaces.
The Bozhkos emigrated to the U.S. in 2018 amid the Russian-backed incursion of the Donbas region. Four years passed before Russian forces enacted a full-scale invasion through the Donbas on Feb. 24, 2022.
“We went out and started calling people because we started screaming about what’s going on,” Dmytro Bozhko said of his organization being founded amid the collective outcry of his fellow refugees. “We were really afraid of losing our country.”
A panoply of performers also took to the outdoor stage, including lively Bahamian horn-backed Junkanoo marches; Mexican mariachi; Afro-Cuban salsa; and Bollywood-inspired Hindi dancing.
1964 The Tribute, the renowned Beatles cover band hailed by outlets including Rolling Stone magazine, headlined the festival. The band has affected the image of the Fab Four in their British Invasion heyday – from Rickenbacker guitars to sharp suits definitive of London mod fashion – for over 40 years.
Mark Benson, the group’s resident John Lennon, has helmed the band since its 1984 formation between playing in other bands and repairing guitars in an Akron, Ohio, luthiery.
Benson and his bandmates played in several Midwest-based bands before forming 1964 “before any tribute industry” defined their schedule, he said after their performance.
“There really doesn’t seem to be an age group that doesn’t like it,” he added. “You see three generations of a family sitting out there sometimes, and everybody’s singing, everybody’s happy.”
Mac Ruffing, the band’s Paul McCartney analog, talked about how the Beatles canon supplanted the skiffle and easy listening of post-war British pop music with the rock of Little Richard and Chuck Berry that many English-language bands would follow.
Ruffing added how the Beatles, in their tours from 1964-66, would not play to racially segregated audiences in the Southern U.S., including a Sept. 11, 1964, show at Jacksonville’s Gator Bowl.
The band “said, ‘no, we’re not playing unless everyone’s mixed together,’” Ruffing said. “They kind of forced them do it, otherwise they wouldn’t play, which I commend them for that.
“With the way so many of us are divided by so many things right now in society, all those walls come down,” Benson said. “People just come and sing Beatles songs.”