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FROM MANY NATIONS, ONE MAINE – Celebrate at 23rd Annual Greater Portland Festival of Nations (FON)

FROM MANY NATIONS, ONE MAINE – Celebrate at 23rd Annual Greater Portland Festival of Nations (FON)

PORTLAND, Maine, July 16, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — Hundreds of international flags will sway in the breeze as summer heats up on Saturday, July 26, 2025, at Deering Oaks Park for the 23rd Annual Greater Portland Festival of Nations (FON). This vibrant celebration is a feast for the eyes and ears, showcasing Maine's rich cultural diversity while preserving traditions, fostering ethnic understanding, and promoting unity. This year's theme: 'FROM MANY NATIONS, ONE MAINE.'
FON is thrilled to welcome back its charismatic chair, Michael O. (Michael Odokara-Okigbo), Portland's own singing sensation. Now a celebrated singer, songwriter, and actor based in Los Angeles, Lagos, and New York City, Michael O. will headline the festival in a triumphant homecoming. The electrifying Stream Reggae Band returns as the house band, alongside a lineup of talented performers ready to dazzle the crowd.
Attendees will enjoy the scenic beauty of Deering Oaks Park while savoring delicious global cuisines from diverse vendors, dancing to live music, and exploring unique holiday shopping opportunities.
Represented cultures include African American, Armenian, Bosnian, Cambodian, Caribbean, Congolese, French, Finnish, Greek, Hispanic, Irish, East Indian, Italian, Native American, Nigerian, Polish, Romanian, Somali, Sudanese, Thai, Ugandan, and Vietnamese.
The FON is goal is to provide a fun and uplifting experience for families so this year we are proud to announce that Love Lab Studio will provide art activities for children!
Love Lab Studio is a children's and community art studio located in Portland. They believe art is one of the tools for co-creating a better world. They are so excited to make art with everyone! For more information, please visit https://lovelabstudio.com/.
Highlights include:
Admission is FREE! (Food and gifts available for purchase.)
COME, EAT, SING, DANCE, AND CELEBRATE MAINE'S CULTURAL TAPESTRY!
When: Saturday, July 26, 2025 | 10 AM – 6 PM
Where: Deering Oaks Park, Portland, Maine
More info: https://www.festivalofnationsmaine.com/
MULTIMEDIA:
Image links for media:
POSTER: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6184c4398384ab46f5a1a614/542a9de2-b14c-4833-9fdd-4375821f72ea/Festival+of+Nation+Poster+2025_1.jpg?format=1500w
LOGO: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6184c4398384ab46f5a1a614/5c61b04d-2ba7-4071-b9c0-6c5c22db0610/FoN%2Blogo-background.png?format=1000w
NEWS SOURCE: Greater Portland Festival of Nations
###
MEDIA ONLY CONTACT:
(not for publication online or in print)
Shalom Odokara
Coordinator/FON
(207) 420-1277
###
Keywords: Entertainment, Greater Portland Festival of Nations, Stream Reggae Band, Deering Oaks Park, Michael Odokara-Okigbo, Women in Need inc, PORTLAND, Maine
This press release was issued on behalf of the news source (Greater Portland Festival of Nations) who is solely responsibile for its accuracy, by Send2Press® Newswire. Information is believed accurate but not guaranteed. Story ID: S2P127749 APNF0325A
To view the original version, visit: https://www.send2press.com/wire/from-many-nations-one-maine-celebrate-at-23rd-annual-greater-portland-festival-of-nations-fon/
© 2025 Send2Press® Newswire, a press release distribution service, Calif., USA.
RIGHTS GRANTED FOR REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART BY ANY LEGITIMATE MEDIA OUTLET - SUCH AS NEWSPAPER, BROADCAST OR TRADE PERIODICAL. MAY NOT BE USED ON ANY NON-MEDIA WEBSITE PROMOTING PR OR MARKETING SERVICES OR CONTENT DEVELOPMENT.
Disclaimer: This press release content was not created by nor issued by the Associated Press (AP). Content below is unrelated to this news story.
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[Warning: Video includes profanity.] 'Shame Game' has a psychedelic vibe that's kinda like a hybrid of Strawberry Alarm Clock and Blue Oyster Cult, while the title track has a prog rock vibe redolent of Styx, Rush and Mars Volta. I love all that stuff. I spend more time listening to music than playing guitar. It's how I practice music. I take in these inspirations and it all comes out later when I write without me realizing it. In 2020, System released the songs 'Protect the Land' and 'Genocidal Humanoidz,' which you originally planned to use for Scars on Broadway. At that time, I hadn't recorded 'Genocidal Humanoidz' yet, but I had finished 'Protect the Land,' and my vocals on the song are the tracks I was going to use for my album. Serj just came in and sang his parts over it. Why did you offer those songs to System when every time you tried to work on an album with them after 2010, you hit a creative impasse? Because [the second Nagorno-Karabakh War] was going on in Artsakh at that time between [the Armenian breakaway state Artsakh and Azerbaijan], and we decided we needed to say something. We all got on the phone and I said, 'Hey, I got this song 'Protect the Land,' and it's about this exact topic.' So, I pulled it off the Scars record and shared it with System. You released the eponymous Scars on Broadway album in 2008, almost exactly two years after System went on a four-year hiatus. Did you form Scars out of a need to stay creative? At the time, I knew that if I wanted to keep releasing music, I needed a new outlet, so Scars was something that had to happen or I would have just been sitting around all these years and nobody would have heard from me. You played a few shows with Scars before your first album came out in 2008, but you abruptly canceled the supporting tour and only released one more Scars song before 2018. That was a really strange time. I wanted to move forward with my music, but we had worked so hard to get to the point we got to in System, and not everyone was in the same boat when it came to how we wanted to move forward. I just wasn't ready to do a tour with Scars. Was it like trying to start a new relationship after a bad breakup? I might have rushed into that second marriage too quick. I had [System drummer] John [Dolmayan] playing with me, and I think that was [a sign that] I was still holding onto System of a Down. That created a lot of anxiety. A few years later, you announced that you were working on a new Scars album and planned to release it in 2013. Why did it take until 2018 for you to put out "Dictator"? I was writing songs and thinking they were amazing, but in my head I was conflicted about where the songs were going to go. "Should I take them to Scars? Is that premature? Would System want to do something with them?" I underwent this constant struggle because Serj and I always had this creative disagreement. I finally moved past that and did the second album, but it took a while. System of a Down played nine concerts in South America this spring, and you have six stadium gigs scheduled in North America for August and September. Is there any chance a new System album will follow? I'm not so sure I even want to make another System of a Down record at this point in my life. I'm getting along with the guys really well right now. Serj and I love each other and we enjoy being onstage together. So, maybe it's best for us to keep playing concerts as System and doing our own things outside of that. The cover art for "Addicted to the Violence" — a silhouette of a woman against a blood-red background holding an oversize bullet over her head, and standing in front of a row of opium poppies — is the work of your father, Iraqi-born artist Vartan Malakian. Was he a major inspiration for you? My approach to art and everything I know about it comes from my dad, and the way we approach what we do is very similar. We both do it for ourselves. He has never promoted himself or done an art exhibition. The only things most people have seen from him are the album covers. But ever since I was born, he was doing art in the house, and he's never cared if anyone was looking at it. Do you seek his approval? No, I don't. He usually is very supportive of what I do, but my dad's a complicated guy. I admire him a lot and wish I could even be half of the artist that he is. And if he and my mom didn't move to this country, I would not have been in System of a Down. I would have ended up as a soldier during Desert Storm and the Second Gulf War. That's my alternative life. It's crazy. Have you been to Iraq? When I was 14 years old, I went there for two months to visit relatives and it was a complete culture shock. I'm a kid that grew up in Hollywood, and I went to Baghdad wearing a Metallica shirt and I was a total smart aleck. Everywhere we went, I saw pictures and statues of Saddam Hussein. I turned to my cousin and said, 'What if I walked up to one of the statues and said, 'Hey Saddam, go f— yourself?'' Just me saying that made him nervous and scared. Talking like that was seriously dangerous and I had no idea. That was a definite learning experience of what I could have been. And it inspired me later to write 'Satan Hussein.' You had a glimpse of life under an authoritarian regime. Do you have strong feelings about the Trump administration and the way the president has, at times, acted like a dictator? I don't hate the guy and I don't love the guy. I'm not on the right, I'm not on the left. There are some things both sides do that I agree with, but I don't talk about that stuff in interviews because when it comes to politics, I'm not on a team. I don't like the division in this country, and I think if you're too far right or you're too far left, you end up in the same place. Is "Addicted to the Violence," and especially the song 'Killing Spree,' a commentary on political violence in our country? Not just political violence, it's all violence. 'Killing Spree' is ridiculous. It's heavy. It's dark. But if you listen to the way I sing, there is an absolutely absurd delivery, almost like I'm having fun with it. I'm not celebrating the violence, but the delivery is done the way a crazy person would celebrate it. So, it's from the viewpoint of a killer, the viewpoint of a victim, and my own viewpoint. I saw a video on social media of these kids standing around in the street, and one of them gets wiped out by the back end of a car and flies into the air. These kids are recording it and some of them are laughing like's it's funny. I don't want to say that's right or wrong, but from what I'm seeing, a lot of people have become desensitized to violence. You're releasing "Addicted to the Violence" about six weeks before the final six System of a Down dates of 2025. Have you figured out how to compartmentalize what you do with System of a Down and Scars on Broadway? There was a time that I couldn't juggle the two very well, but now I feel more confident and very comfortable with where System and Scars are. I love playing with System, and I want to do more shows with Scars. I couldn't tell you how either band will evolve. Only time will tell what happens and I'm fine with that as long as it happens in a natural way. Everything we've experienced has brought us to where we are now. And now is all we've got because the past is gone and the future isn't here yet. So, the most important thing is the present. Get notified when the biggest stories in Hollywood, culture and entertainment go live. Sign up for L.A. Times entertainment alerts. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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