The Macy’s Fourth of July Fireworks will be exploding over the West Side again this year (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
With the Fourth of July landing on a Wednesday this year, there seem to be fewer special events than usual, but there are still a bunch of ways for people to celebrate America’s 236th birthday. First and foremost is Macy’s thirty-sixth annual fireworks display, which will once again hail over the West Side; “Ignite the Night” will feature more than forty thousand fireworks set to a score selected by online voting, with music by Ray Charles, Madonna, Lee Greenwood, Neil Diamond, Taylor Swift, Whitney Houston, and Star-Spangled Sing-Off winner Kory Glattman as well as live performances by Katy Perry and Kenny Chesney. Four barges will be located between 18th & 43rd Sts. along the Hudson River. Rooftop Films will be honoring the United States with a free program in Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City; “The American Experience” consists of eight shorts that take a serious and/or humorous look at elections and politics, including Patrick Désilets’s Mulvar Is Correct Candidate!, Matt Bockelman’s You Have the Right to an Attorney, and Sara Zia Ebrahimi’s Norman Schwarzkopf Made Me Gay, preceded by live music by Dustin Wong and Arturo en el Barco. July 4 is usually a big day for large, outdoor free concerts under the sun, but the only park show this year is part of the Madison Square Park Oval Lawn Series, with Noam Pikelny and Friends, the Sweetback Sisters, and Spuyten Duyvil, beginning at 3:00. The New York Philharmonic will be at Avery Fisher Hall on July 3, 4, and 5 ($40-$50) for “Summertime Classics: A New York Fourth,” playing compositions by Leonard Bernstein, George Gerswhin, and others, with the Hellcats and Jazz Knights from the West Point Band and Tracy Dahl, conducted by Bramwell Tovey. Back in the day, the Mets used to play double headers on July 4; this Wednesday you can head to the Bushwick music club Shea Stadium for Summerjam IV ($10, 4:20), which boasts quite a lineup: Afu Ra featuring Shea Stadium All-Stars, Dope Body, Roomrunner, Fuckton, Alan Watts, Ami Dang, Eleven Swords, Smhoak & Pals, and the Jazz Massagers. If it’s baseball you want, you can catch the Brooklyn Cyclones taking on the Williamsport Crosscutters at MCU Park in Coney Island ($9-$16, 6:00); after the game, there will be fireworks, and everyone is invited to run around the bases. The surprising Mets will be in town as well, taking on the division rival Philadelphia Phillies at 1:00 at Citi Field, with Chris Young scheduled to go up against Kyle Kendrick. And over at the Stone, the Spy Music Festival will have John Blum at 8:00 and the Trevor Watts + Veryan Weston duo at 10:00 ($10 per set; festival continues July 1-15).