Light Of Day WinterFest 2022 Parkinson’s Disease Benefit: 29 Shows in Asbury Park – Loch Arbor – Red Bank ·
Tickets: TicketMaster · The Basie Theater Box Office ·
LightOfDay.org · Related Conditions: PSP Disease · ALS Disease
Sources: NJbiz.com
A 10-day charity music festival was supposed to bring some off-season lifeblood to a couple of shore towns last month until a year-end holiday COVID surge postponed the plans. Not to be foiled completely, the 2022 Light of Day WinterFest kicked off with an event on February 26 in Montclair, and will return to Asbury Park, Red Bank, and Loch Arbor from March 4 to 13 with an additional event in late April.
The festival is directed by longtime music promoter Tony Pallagrosi, a co-founder of the event with friend and fellow music industry professional Bob Benjamin, who has lived with Parkinson’s since 1998. The duo met decades ago while Pallagrosi was playing trumpet for Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes.
Pallagrosi planned a party dubbed Bob’s Birthday Bash to lift his spirits. “Bob was the guy who said, ‘why don’t we collect money, and whatever money we collect give to the Parkinson’s Disease Center of New York?’ We raised $2,000 that night. It was the genesis of Light of Day,” Pallagrosi said.
Most of the events take place at venues in Asbury Park, but the main event — Bob’s Birthday Bash — will take place March 12 at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank. Bruce Springsteen has made surprise appearances at 11 of the 19 festival’s main events in prior years.
For Pallagrosi, the festival is a labor of love inspired by Benjamin’s “resilience and his nature, which is to be proactive,” and his own mother’s experience with the neurodegenerative disease PSP.
“These diseases are incredibly complex. Therapies have improved, but the treatments really haven’t gotten anywhere near where they need to be. That drives us to keep moving and keep going forward.” Pallagrosi said.
“I wish I wouldn’t still be talking about it after 20 years — but as long as we are, we’ll keep doing what we’re doing.”