‘Gary Lazer Eyes’ ​Set ​T​o ​O​pen ​F​or The Original Wailers At Cocoa Beach Seafood Festival​

at Alan Shepard Park in Cocoa Beach

ABOVE VIDEO: The talent-packed “Gary Lazer Eyes” ​band is ​set ​t​o ​o​pen ​f​or The Original Wailers at the Cocoa Beach Seafood Festival​ on Sunday, February 26 at Alan Shepard Park in Cocoa Beach.

B​REVARD COUNTY • COCOA BEACH FLORIDA – The talent-packed “Gary Lazer Eyes” ​band is ​set ​t​o ​o​pen ​f​or The Original Wailers at the Cocoa Beach Seafood Festival​ on Sunday, February 26 at Alan Shepard Park in Cocoa Beach.

Although currently based out of Orlando, Gary Lazer Eyes is comprised of four Melbourne, Florida natives. In their relatively short band life of 2 years, the band has grown in sound, and in reach.

After being voted Orlando’s “Best Rock Act” in Best of Orlando 2016, they released “High On Lies.”

On this EP, they seem to explore a more alternative territory, while still managing to reflect their reggae and blues rock roots.

To support the release, Gary Lazer Eyes embarked on their first national tour. Upon returning home, they played a few “welcome back to Florida” shows, receiving a warm reception from the Central Florida community.

“You have to treat your band like a full time job to really move forward,” said lead singer and guitarist Austin Young.

“If your hard work is consistent, people will take notice. Your audience tends to engage more when you’re constantly generating good news, and so do people in the music industry that you may want to work with.”

The Cocoa Beach Seafood and Music Festival will feature a large and diverse variety of seafood and other food choices for the public during the three-day festival, February 24-26 at Alan Shepard Park in Cocoa Beach.

Lobster, aka Maine’s red gold, is one of the gustatory stars of the Cocoa Beach Seafood and Music Fest, a weekend jammed with great music and fantastic food.

From 5 p.m., Friday, Feb. 24 to the evening hours on Sunday, Feb. 26, beachfront Alan Shepard Park will be the place for grazing on seafood and listening to top musical entertainers perform live on the Space Coast Daily Stage.

“King Lobstah” will be joined by shrimp, clams, oysters and other princes of the deep during this seafood extravaganza. For seafood lovers and music lovers, this will be a weekend to remember.

“We will have a terrific amount and variety of seafood on offer at the festival,” said Giles Malone, partner in Maverick Multimedia and Brevard Productions, publishers of Space Coast Daily and organizers of the festival.

“Top-class seafood vendors will join us from here at the beautiful beachfront Alan Shepard Park and from all across the USA to satisfy every appetite. We thought of the landlubbers, too, and we’re also offering lots of great BBQ and other food choices.”

Seafood vendors have been selected for the variety of dishes they bring to the festival table.

Familiar faces on the Brevard restaurant scene will also be dishing out their specialties.

Francine Grigley of Jersey Girl Superfoods with Attitude thinks she may don a pirate costume when serving her festival fare.

At the recent Renaissance Fair on Wickham Park, she was decked out appropriately as the “Jersey wench” who served “ye old pub grub.”

“One of my first jobs in New Jersey was working at Cap’n Cat Clam Bar,” said Grigley, who adds that she makes it a point to revisit the restaurant whenever she revisits her old Garden State stomping grounds.

For the Cocoa Beach Seafood and Music Festival, Grigley plans to feature clam stew Jersey style, as in very traditional and very filling.

Her food truck will also serve shrimp cocktails, prepared with fresh, still warm shrimp with lots of spices, cocktail sauce and drawn butter, just as she remembered from her Jersey days.

Additional menu items, among others, include fish tacos and smoked whiting with drawn butter.

If all the mention of drawn butter brings images of high cholesterol, not to worry, for Grigley will also have non-seafood, healthy offerings such as broccoli salad and kale salad.

From New Jersey is not too far to visit Maryland, at least by way of Willy T’s Crab Shack, home of Maryland-style crab cakes. For their legendary authentic Maryland-style crab cake sandwich, Willy T’s chefs start with generous portions of lump blue crab meat, to which is added the company’s “World Famous Secret Family Recipe” spices before being deep-fried to perfection.

The sandwiches are served on artisanal buttery brioche buns with lettuce and tomato on the side.

Willy T’s also features mini versions of the crab cakes and spicy shrimp sandwiches, as well as crab salad and shrimp and clam baskets.

Fans of the television hit “Shark Tank” may remember Portland, Maine cousins Jim Tselikis and Sabin Lomax, who wowed the “sharks” with their proposal for expansion of their Cousins Maine Lobster food trucks.

ABOVE VIDEO: Cousins Maine Lobster will be featured at the Cocoa Beach Seafood and Music Festival.

Orlando resident Kevin Anderson saw the show and was so impressed by what the Cousins offered, he bought into their franchise.

“They grew up in the lobster business and know what they’re talking about,” said Anderson. “Their recipes are so good, they couldn’t keep up with the demand.”

Anderson will bring his Cousins Maine Lobster food truck to the Cocoa Beach Seafood Fest to satisfy lobster cravings. Expect lobster rolls, lobster tacos, lobster quesadillas, Maine lobster tail, lobster bisque and lobster tots.

“This is authentic Maine lobster, shipped in several times a week,” said Anderson.

Does Anderson ever get tired of eating the leggy crustaceans? “I never get tired of our lobster,” he said.

Golden Gate Seafoods, mainstays at outdoor events around the country, will present 150 feet of seafood delights, including crawfish, crab legs, alligator, calamari, lobster mac and cheese and seafood boil, and that’s just for starters.

From Jacksonville straight to the Seafood Fest arrives What’s the Catch, a super-cool retro Airstream brimming with Florida Keys attitude…and seafood.

Catch both amazingly tasty options such as Key Est Grilled Grouper and pan-seared ahi tuna as well as some delicious deep-fried dishes such as the Blue Lava Shrimp Taco and island-style shrimp entrees.

These are just for starters, folks. There’s plenty of more seafood to discover by the Exploration Tower.

Because man lives by more than seafood alone, the festival features an international beer and wine pavilion, an arts and crafts show, a children’s activity zone and special events such as the Pirates’ Parade and Party, when several Pirate Krewes, including the Brethren of the Space Coast Pirates’ Krewe, strut their stuff.

Pirate sword fighting demos, roaming pirate troubadours, pirate belly dancers and even a pirate balloon artist make for “aargh-mazing” entertainment.

After the parade, the pirates party hearty, with samplings from Code Rum, the festival’s official rum.

The festival also features the Shark Experience Pavilion, a specially designed aquarium that holds several sharks and fate-tempting divers.

The Shark Experience Pavilion is part of the Shark Encounter Exposition, the only traveling shark encounter exposition in America.

The shark shows, as well as the pirate parade and party, are free with festival admission.

COCOA BEACH SEAFOOD & MUSIC FESTIVAL SET FEBRUARY 24 – 26 AT SHEPARD PARK

ABOVE VIDEO: Dirty Heads will be among the chart-topping music artists that will appear during the Cocoa Beach Seafood & Music Festival set for Feb. 24-26, 2017. Tickets go on sale on Friday, December 23 at 10 a.m. CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS

COCOA BEACH SEAFOOD AND MUSIC FESTIVAL MUSICAL LINE UP & SCHEDULE

• Friday, Feb. 24: Don McLean 7:30 p.m.
• Saturday, Feb. 25: Dirty Heads, plus guests Ballyhoo! and Funkle Fester, 7 p.m.
• Sunday, Feb. 26: The Original Wailers, 3 p.m.

Tickets on sale NOW at all TICKETMASTER locations.

The 2017 Cocoa Beach Seafood & Music Festival at Shepard Park is sponsored by Cape Canaveral Hospital, Space Coast Daily, Florida’s Space Coast, News 6, Miller Lite and Savings Safari.

For more information, or if you would like to register for the Arts & Crafts Show, call 1-855-386-3836 or e-mail Contact@SpaceCoastDaily.com

CLICK HERE FOR SEAFOOD VENDOR APPLICATION

CLICK HERE FOR ARTS & CRAFTS APPLICATION

CLICK HERE FOR MARKETPLACE APPLICATION

STAY TUNED TO SPACE COAST DAILY FOR EXCITING UPDATES

ABOVE MAP: The three-day 2017 Cocoa Beach Seafood & Music Festival will take place at Shepard Park, a beautiful 5-acre oceanfront park located at 200 E. Cocoa Beach Causeway in Cocoa Beach, Florida. The park is named after America’s first man in space, NASA Astronaut Alan Shepard, who flew aboard a Mercury spacecraft he named Freedom 7 on May 5, 1961.

Parking at the Cocoa Beach Seafood & Music Festival at Alan Shepard Park in Cocoa Beach will be easy as plenty of parking areas have been organized, along with free Park & Ride shuttle service. 

The exciting three-day Cocoa Beach Seafood & Music festival is set for February  24 to 26 at the beautiful 10-acre oceanfront Alan Shepard Park, located at the eastern-most end of State Road 520.

TRAVELING FROM THE WEST AND NORTH

Next To Sunrise Diner Parking Area:

PARKING LOT 1: Next to Sunrise Diner: Just 1/4 mile west of Shepard Park, along State Road 520, is a large parking area with free Park and Ride shuttle service running frequently to and from Shepard Park. Parking is $10 per car at this location, and the Park and Ride Shuttle service is free for people parking in that parking lot. You will find this parking area next to Sunrise Diner, located at 365 West Cocoa Beach Causeway (State Road 520), Cocoa Beach, Florida 32931.

TRAVELING FROM THE NORTH

Church of Our Savior Parking Area:

PARKING LOT 2: Church of Our Savior, located at 5301 North Atlantic Avenue, Cocoa Beach, Florida 32931, has a large parking area, offering parking for $5, with a free Park and Ride Shuttle Service, running continuously, to and from Alan Shepard Park, where the seafood festival is located.

Craig Technologies and Radisson Resort at the Port Parking Areas:

PARKING LOTS 3: Craig Technologies, located at 8550 Astronaut Blvd, Cape Canaveral, Florida 32920, has a large parking area, offering parking for $10 per car, with free park and ride shuttle service for people parking there.

PARKING LOT 4: The Radisson Resort At The Port, located at 8701 Astronaut Blvd, Cape Canaveral, FL 32920 has a large grass parking area just south of the hotel. Turn at W. Central Blvd. and proceed west to the parking lot entrance. Parking is $10 at this location and the free park and ride shuttle service will take you to and from Alan Shepard Park, where the festival is being held. The Radisson also offers excellent accommodations for those wishing to stay overnight.

TRAVELING FROM THE SOUTH

Winn Dixie Shopping Center Parking Area:

PARKING LOT 5: Winn Dixie Shopping Center in Cocoa Beach, pictured above in dark green, is located at 100 Canaveral Plaza Boulevard in Cocoa Beach, FL 32931. This parking area is a short walk west of Shepard Park.

Festival and Surrounding Areas

FESTIVAL SURROUNDING AREA: Three parking areas lie within a ½ mile radius of the festival. These are noted above by the official parking symbol in the map. PLEASE NOTE: Parking restrictions in the residential area to the north of Shepard Park will be strictly enforced by the police, and will be clearly marked.

Additional parking areas will be added to the list of parking lots above – stay tuned to Space Coast Daily for updated and additions. For information and assistance please call 1-855-386-3836, or 321-323-4460, or 321-302-6565 or 321-615-8111.

CLICK HERE FOR THE COCOA BEACH SEAFOOD FESTIVAL WEBSITE 

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