Eclectic Crowd Rocks TunaFest at Howard’s Club H

The annual festival held by local bar legend Charlie Tuna, and Howard’s Club H, has come to an end. Thrown every year since long before this kid ever hit town, the festival takes place in the parking lot of Howard’s Club H, 210 N. Main St. in Bowling Green Ohio.

The festival was unfortunately not blessed with the usual act of Charlie Tunas band on account of Charlie dislocating his shoulder in what his account claims to of been a bar fight with Hell’s Angels. An unlikely story yet in typical fashion with Charlie’s style.

The Welders did, however, headline accompanied by a whole slew of other state and local acts. While the band names aren’t big or in most cases even recognizable, the fun had is priceless. Food and drinks start around 1PM and the whole excursion is not through until 2AM.

The fest is especially entertaining due to the wide array of people attracted to the club and event themselves. A quick glance at the crowd and you’ll see everything from punks, hard-rockers, hippies, drunkards, and local business people still donning there formal attire. All of whom come together and interact peaceably with one another for this one day a year. all the while Charlie runs around with a beer in one hand and a miniature harmonica, which he sell at no profit to himself for a charity started by Stevie Ray Vaughn, in the other. He’ll tell you tall tales that aren’t near as incredible as his true ones of love, life, excess and the like. In the end you feel as if you may have just watched a VH1 behind the music on Led Zeppelin’s ’68 tour.

If your ever in Bowling Green on or around the last week of July, the date every year for TunaFest is tentative until roughly a month or two before its arrival, get down to Howard’s and experience this for yourself. Even if you can’t make the festival the bar is always there, and on-line at howardsclubh.com, offering enough character to disgrace the other local bars for being the corporate cookie cutter copies that they are.