The stage was filled nearly to capacity with musicians, fans and their instruments. The crowd was raucous. The lights were bright. As a special birthday treat to Derek Davies, one of the organizers of the Stars & Stripes Festival, the band St. Lucia was going to play their hit single September with the help of Haerts and a full entourage of Derek’s friends. St. Lucia’s frontman Jean-Philip Grobler pressed keys and twisted knobs on his synthesizer, cueing up September’s opening chords.

Aaron Carter has a deep, gravelly voice. This may not be what you remember coming from the gangly, thirteen-year-old blonde kid who rapped about his block “party of the year” and his dream game of one-on-one against Shaquille O’Neal in the early 2000s. “Everyone will start to see that I’m not going to be the same as I was back then, and I’m not afraid to express myself,” Mr. Carter said in an interview with the Gazette. “I’m going to do new, big things.”

The Unitarian Universalist Society hosts guest preacher Rev. Arlene Bodge this Sunday, July 7, at 11 a.m. Ms. Bodge is a longtime Islander and a retired Methodist minister who formerly served in Chilmark and Edgartown.

Pianist David Crohan will share the stage with summer resident Caroline Sky as they perform a concert to benefit the Island Elderly Housing’s Quality of Life programs on Sunday, July 14 at 7:30 p.m. The concert is at the Old Whaling Church on Main street in Edgartown. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and a meet-the-artist reception will follow the performance.

Tickets are $35 in advance and $40 at the door, and $15 for students ages 18 and under. They can be purchased at ticketsmv.com, daRosa’s, Alley’s General Store, Bunch of Grapes Bookstore and Edgartown Books.

Chadwick Stokes, lead singer and guitarist for alternative rock bands State Radio and Dispatch, will perform at Flatbread on Friday, July 12. The concert is a benefit for his organization Calling All Crows, which provides assistance in coordinating service projects for musicians and their fans.