The last time we wrote about a benefit concert for Haiti (Rise Up International’s event at the Domino Room), there were predictions that news about the impoverished country and the devastating earthquake that killed so many of its citizens would soon vanish from the headlines. At that time, just a few weeks after the January quake, this didn’t seem possible. But just this has happened – Haiti isn’t in the regular news cycle that anymore.

In Bend, there have been continuing efforts and special events to raise relief money for the country and its people, but it seems even talk of those efforts has quieted down. This is all changing this week, however, with perhaps the largest-scale Haiti relief event coming to Bend on Friday, the Bend for Haiti benefit at the Tower Theatre.

When Eric Tollefson released his full-length disc, Sum of Parts, last year, it seemed like the towering redhead had come out of nowhere. There’d been little buzz about him before the release, but soon after he couldn’t be avoided, opening shows for Jackie Greene and playing a hard-charging set to warm the stage for G. Love and Special Sauce in early September at the Domino Room.

While G. Love was on stage, Tollefson, wearing the Breedlove Guitars baseball cap that seems to be his constant around-town companion, was near the back of the crowd, leaning against the wall. On the Juneau, Alaska, native’s face was the sort of grin that comes only from really kicking ass at something, which is what he’d just done – even if he did make the mistake of addressing the blues-guitar playing, hip-hop-rhyme-spouting artist as “G” rather than his preferred “Garrett” when the two met backstage.

In the back yard of Angeline’s Bakery in Sisters, a young and dreadlocked Noah Gundersen and an even younger Abby Gundersen stood on a small stage, playing deftly arranged, intensely emotive folk songs and rarely looked up from the wooden deck below their feet to meet the gaze of the capacity audience rapt by their music.

The scene was a late-afternoon performance at the 2008 Sisters Folk Festival where a then teenage Gunderson played a supporting role. Now the organization is bringing Noah Gundersen and his new band The Courage back to town for the Winter Concert Series this weekend. But the Noah Gundersen coming through this time is far from the seemingly meek wunderkind we saw two years ago. He’s older – still young at 20, but older nonetheless – and he now will gladly rock whenever he feels the need.

“I feel like the ska janitor, you know? I’m coming through with a broom and cleaning up everybody’s mess,” says Rob “Bucket” Hingley, the front man and sole remaining original member of The Toasters.

His metaphor is more than apt. While it’s difficult to know for sure, The Toasters were most likely the first ska band to come out of America back in 1981. Now, some 30 years later, they are one of the most well-known bands of that genre still on the touring circuit. Sure, they benefited from the ska explosion of the mid-1990s, but whereas so many of those horn-laden, suspender-wearing acts faded into oblivion (you just don’t hear people talking about Save Ferris anymore, do you?) the Toasters, or at least Hingley, has survived. And if he has to clean up the genre, then so be it.

There’s something about seeing music outside. Maybe it’s the bigger crowds or the fresh air or the fact that you can spill a few drops of your beer on the ground without feeling too bad about it. Over the past three years, the music at WinterFest has become one of the biggest draws of the annual event – which is worth noting, given that WinterFest also includes ice sculptures, motorcycles and skiers/snowboarders launching into the stratosphere.

Last year, temperatures well below freezing didn’t discourage folks from crowding in to the Old Mill to see performances from acts like Sweatshop Union and Dirty Dozen Brass Band, among others. Without WinterFest, we in Central Oregon would be looking at a gap in outdoor live music as long as seven months, which explains why folks are willing to bundle up and head out in the middle of February.