New Year’s events can keep you rockin’ for days

This year’s New Year’s Eve falls on a Sunday night. That’s great news for people who want to:

• Party on Saturday, then spend two whole days recovering.

• Party on Sunday, then spend one day recovering as usual.

• Party all weekend long.

Differently flavored celebrations are set for both nights in downtown Vancouver, so especially hardy partiers can practice up for New Year’s Eve on New Year’s Eve Eve. On Dec. 30, old-school blues master Norman Sylvester rocks the historic hangar at Pearson Air Museum, where you can dance the night almost away — but then still get home at a reasonable hour, thus saving some oomph for Dec. 31’s bash. That’s at WareHouse ’23 and featuring dinner, drinks and slightly more contemporary entertainment — including cover band, DJ, celebrity hosts and even up-in-the-air acrobatics.

Eve before Eve

“Put your hands in the air like you just don’t care!”

Chances are good that you’ll hear that trademark line during the Norman Sylvester Band show Dec. 30 at Pearson, and chances are just as good you’ll be overjoyed to do it. The venerable Sylvester — guitarist, singer, showman, Oregon Music Hall of Fame inductee and two-time winner of the Cascade Blues Association’s “Best R&B Band” award — has been zapping local audiences with his tried-and-true electric blues style for many decades now.

Sylvester bills himself as “The Original Northwest Boogie Cat,” but he’s a Louisiana native from the tiny village of Bonita, where he grew up catching blues on local jukeboxes and radio shows — but not at home, where his Gospel-singing father frowned upon it.

Still, after the family relocated by train to Portland in 1957, when Sylvester was 12, Dad did buy him his first guitar. A gigging pro since the late 1960s, Sylvester still held onto his day job at a local trucking firm until the company folded in 1990 and he finally heeded the advice of mentors like Albert Collins and Buddy Guy and became a full-time bluesman.

The Norman Sylvester Band has been going strong ever since.

Neon Eve

In a completely different vein, the New Year’s Eve party at WareHouse ’23’s Neon Ballroom will feature the slick, big-hair sounds of the 1980s, courtesy popular dance band The Nu Wavers — with special guest singers Britnee Kellogg and Karen Johnson-Miller of Vancouver — as well as the pop-soul vibe of right now, courtesy Hillsboro, Ore., native Lovey James with her band, and DJ Jose Sosa.

Before all that, though, tilt your head back and look up as the Aerial Muse Collective, a unique group of acrobats, dancers and circus performers gets things underway by dancing in the air.

That starts at 7:45 p.m., just after the doors open for the evening. A gourmet dinner by executive chef Mike Culver (choose from bacon wrapped tenderloin, balsamic grilled chicken or mac-n-cheese) will be served at 8 p.m. Lovely James and band start at 9 p.m.

If you don’t want to shell out $125 (for good seating) or $150 (best seating), consider a $30 late-entry ticket, which gets you in at 10 p.m. — in time for DJ Jose Sosa and the evening’s showstopping headliner, The Nu Wavers. (Note that the $150 VIP ticket is the only one that includes complimentary drinks and champagne toast.)

In keeping with the Neon Ballroom theme, the dress code is officially comfortable-yet-glowing. Business casual is preferred, elegance is even better. No blue jeans please. There’s plenty of free parking in the WareHouse ’23 lot and right nearby.

And, the nearby Homewood Suites Columbia Shores hotel has offered a special rate of $99 for that night, as well as its shuttle to get guests to and from the event safely. The Beaches Party Bus will join that important mission, too.