Bret Michaels (photo: Carrie Reiser)
Bret Michaels (photo: Carrie Reiser)

The Puyallup Fair begins each year with a new slogan.

The 2010 slogan is “Free Your Glee,” which sounds more like a catch phrase for “American Idol” (or a certain Fox TV show) than a slogan for a 100-plus-year-old fair that has been entertaining Northwesterners for generations and is older than Seattle’s legendary Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition of 1909.

Founded in 1900, the grand old fair also pre-dates the Model T Ford, talking pictures and sliced bread. Read about the fair’s history here.

Opening Friday (Sept. 10) and continuing through Sept. 26, the Fair is packed with activities, among them big-name grandstand concerts, bronco-busting rodeo competitions, stomach-twirling thrill rides, snorting livestock displays and old-school fast food, such as pink cotton candy, raspberry jam-filled scones and mustard-loving Krusty Pups.

Adam Lambert (photo: Lee Cherry)
Adam Lambert (photo: Lee Cherry)

The grandstand lineup opens with a standing-only concert Friday by Bret Michaels, the actor, director, screenwriter, producer, reality star and former singer for glam-metal band Poison.

Over the coming three weeks, grandstand shows include such acts Kenny Rogers with the Tacoma Symphony, John Legend and Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, We Three Kings, Willie Nelson, Chris Botti and Natalie Cole, Dierks Bentley, Queensryche, Adam Lambert, Daryl Hall & John Oates, Heart and Kid Rock, among others. No kidding, it’s an impressive lineup. And it’s very cool that two big Northwest bands — Queensryche and Heart — and headlining this year.

Read about Kid Rock’s recent homecoming show in Detroit here.

Kid Rock (photo: Brian Tipton)
Kid Rock (photo: Brian Tipton)

For general information about the Fair, click here. And for the complete grandstand lineup, follow this link.

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