From SummerStage to Celebrate Brooklyn to the Bryant Park Film Festival, free summer events are hands-down one of the best reasons not to flee this city in the summer. Though it's barely spring, the annual anticipation of "who's going to be on the lineup" is mounting. And, the first list has been posted...

The SummerStage Benefit concert series. (I.e. the bigger name acts with high ticket prices that pay for all the free stuff during the rest of the summer.) I'll post more links over the next two months as more shows/events are announced.

And, my favorite SummerStage (non-benefit) concert so far has to be the time I saw the Canada Day performance with Sarah Harmer and the Cowboy Junkies in 2001.