Is it 1995 again and no one told me???

Booth Amphitheatre announced another set of shows last night, including a tour that brings me right back to middle school.

Live, Blues Traveler and Collective Soul will play the venue Saturday, Aug. 16. Tickets are a whopping $60 for reserved seating, $35 for lawn and go on sale this Friday, May 9, at 10 a.m.

I'm sure this show will sell fairly well, but I saw Collective Soul on their first comeback tour at a festival in Charlotte a few years ago and wasn't too impressed. Moving on.

Scheduled to play the Cary amphitheater on Thursday, Aug. 28, are Slightly Stoopid, Pepper and special guests Sly & Robbie. I am told by a coworker that Sly & Robbie are, in fact, a big deal. Tickets to this show are general admission, $27.50 in advance and $29 day of show. They go on sale Saturday, May 17 at 10 a.m.

The concert calendar at Booth Amphitheatre has been growing by leaps and bounds these past few weeks. Here's the full schedule so far, including a couple brand new dates.

May 21: Duran Duran, Your Vegas
May 30: Ben Folds

June 27: Yonder Mountain String Band, Keller Willaims

July 26: The Avett Brothers
July 31: Sound Tribe Sector 9, Umphrey's McGee

August 8: Wilco
August 21: G. Love & Special Sauce, The John Butler Trio
August 27: Regeneration Tour: The Human League, Belinda Carlisle , ABC, A Flock of Seagulls, Naked Eyes

Sept. 20: Rock + Roll Hall of Fame Benefit Concert. Performers TBA.
Sept. 24: Gretchen Wilson

Local music hero Ben Folds will play Cary's Booth Amphitheatre on Friday, May 30.

Tickets go on sale next Thursday, May 1, at noon and are $25/lawn and $37.50/reserved.

The Apex girls and the Cary boys captured Tri-Eight track and field championships on Wednesday at Apex High.

Apex won handily, wracking up 160 points to finish well ahead of runner-up Cary (106).

Senior Andie Cozzarelli was the meet’s track MVP. She won the 800-, 1,600-, and 3,200-meter races to score a meet-high 30 points. Teammate Jaimie Brown was the field MVP. She won the long and triple jumps.

The boys’ meet was the closest Cary coach Jerry Dotson could recall in his 18 seasons guiding the Imps. It came down to the final event, the 4x400 relay. Entering the event, Green Hope was in first place with 109 points, followed by Cary (108) and Apex (103).

Cary’s 4x400 team of Rickey Gracy, Brian Wilson, Morgan Harris and Andrew Hill won the race in 3:26.40, while Apex was fifth and Green Hope sixth, clinching the conference championship for the Imps.

Cary finished with 118 points. Green Hope was second with 110, Apex third with 105 and Athens Drive fourth with 101.

Apex’s Kevin Fogg was named the meet’s field MVP. He won the triple jump. He also won the 200 meters and was second in the 100.

Cary’s Harris was the meet’s track MVP. He won the 110 and 300 hurdles and was a part of the winning 4x200 and 4x400 relay teams.

Five months and Walnut Street, or at least a portion of it, should be as good as ever. According to a press release, the Town of Cary will temporarily close the right lane of northbound Walnut Street between Dillard Drive and the bridge over U.S. 1/64 beginning Tuesday, April 22 through September. The lane will be closed Monday through Friday weekly between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. The lane closing is necessary for crews to work on widening Walnut Street as part of N.C. Department of Transportation's widening of U.S. 1/64.

U.S. women's national soccer team coach Pia Sundhage released Friday her 25-player roster for the April 27 match against Australia at WakeMed Soccer Park.

The same players will also be available for the May 3 match against Australia in Birmingham, Ala., and the May 10 match against Canada in Washington, D.C.

Notable players with local ties include former North Carolina standouts Lori Chalupny, Cat Whitehill, Lindsay Tarpley and Heather O'Reilly, as well as current Tar Heel Tobin Heath.

=> Read more!

Got an itchy voting finger that just can't wait until the North Carolina primary on May 6? Well you're in luck because two one-stop-voting sites open tomorrow in western Wake County.

You can vote early at the Herb Young Community Center, 101 Wilkinson Avenue in Cary, or the W. E. Hunt Community Center and Gym, 301 Stinson Avenue in Holly Springs.

If you need to register to vote or change your registration, you can do that too. Click here for more information on what to bring.

Hours for one-stop-voting are as follows:

Saturday, April 26:10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Sunday, April 27: 1 p.m. – 5 p.m.
Monday-Friday, April 28–May 2: 11 a.m. – 7 p.m.
Saturday, May 3: 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.

The Town of Cary will temporarily close the playground at Thomas Brooks Park, 111 Brooks Park Ave., April 21 through April 25 to conduct routine maintenance on playground equipment.

Kameryn Garel-McCullough has a future in politics. At least that's what Sen. Barack Obama thinks.

The Green Hope Elementary fourth-grader was chosen by Obama to ask a question at the senator's town hall meeting in Raleigh Thursday. He told the senator that he had been elected to the student council at his school before asking, "I'm wondering how I could be president."

(Kameryn, above in the orange t-shirt, waits for his turn to be called on.)

"Well I might need some tips from you because you already won the election," Obama replied.

Kameryn and his sister Ilan, 11, attended the meeting with their mother, Trevena Garel. "I gave them the opportunity of going to school or going to witness history," Garel said.

Of his brief fame, Kameryn said, "It was very shocking. It was just very exciting."

Even though the nine-year-old won't be able to vote in the November election, or in the North Carolina primary May 6, he has his own opinions on Obama.

"I think he's a great man," Kameryn said. "He has a great plan for being president and he has a really good chance."

Celebrate Mom and all the love she gives at the Town of Cary's Mother's Day Ball on Saturday, May 10 from 6 p.m. until 10 p.m. Every family member is invited to participate in this special event that will be held at the Cary Senior Center, 120 Maury O'Dell Place, in Bond Park. Early registration is encouraged; tickets are $17 (residents) and $22 (non-residents). Register using any EZ-REG method or at any Parks, Recreation and Cultural Resources staff facility during normal operating hours. For more, visit Mother's Day Ball at http://www.townofcary.org/depts/prdept/events/mothersdayball.htm . For more, call 771-1295.

The Green Hope girls’ soccer team ended Apex’s 10-year unbeaten streak in conference play with a 2-1 win on Wednesday.

Apex’s Christi Kasnowski scored the game’s first goal 61 seconds into the match.

Green Hope drew even in the 24th minute on a 35-yard free kick by Chelsea Garber.

The Falcons’ scored the eventual game winner in 51st minute. Taylor Rovito crossed the ball in from the right flank, and Ashley Stokes one-touched into the net from about 12 yards out.

Apex nearly tied the game in the 65th minute when midfielder Andie Cozzarelli cracked a shot from the top of the penalty area, but it hit the crossbar.

Green Hope nearly knocked off the Cougars in this season’s first meeting. The Falcons led 2-1 late, but Apex tied it in the last five minutes and then won 3-2 in overtime.

If both teams win their remaining conference games (Apex has four; Green Hope five), then they will share the conference championship. But they will have to play for a third time to determine which team gets the Tri-Eight’s No. 1 seed in the state playoffs. The site of that game would be determined by a coin flip.

This is the second time in less than a week that a years-long winning streak involving a Tri-Eight team has ended. Last Thursday,
the Apex boys' tennis team beat Green Hope 5-4, ending the Falcons' seven-and-a-half year, 82-match conference win streak.

The Green Hope golf team won the N.C. High School Invitational by eight strokes over Ravenscroft after shooting an 11-over-par 299 Monday at Treyburn Country Club in Durham.

All four of the Falcons scorers placed in the top 10. Michael Cromie and Michael Marshburn tied for fourth, both at two-over 74. Will Almand was tied for sixth at three-over 75, and Marcus Lindroos was tied for 10th at four-over 76.

Ravenscroft’s Wilson Day was the medalist after shooting a two-under 70, the only player in the field to break par, on the 6,903, par-72 layout. Thomas Chapman of Gastonia Forestview was second with an even-par 72.

Other area scores include Apex’s John Conners (T10th, 76), Green Hope’s Ben Kohles (T15th, 77), Apex’s Andrew Knox (T21st, 79), Athens Drive’s Alex Ehlert (T36th, 82) and Green Hope’s Brooks Beanland (T45th, 84).

Complete team and individual results after the jump.

=> Read more!

The Carolina RailHawks closed out their preseason Sunday with a 1-1 tie against the Minnesota Thunder at WakeMed Soccer Park.

Training camp trialist Jamil Walker notched the RailHawks’ goal in the sixth minute, and Minnesota drew even in the 32nd minute on a goal by Andrew Barron.

Carolina finishes the preseason with a record of 3-3-1 and a goal differential of plus-2. That’s a stark contrast to last preseason, when they went 0-5 and had a goal differential of minus-9.

The RailHawks open the USL-1 season on Saturday in Atlanta, against whom Carolina was 1-1-2 last season. They play their first regular-season home game on April 26 against Charleston.

The Apex boys' tennis team ended Green Hope's 82-match conference winning streak with a 5-4 win Thursday at Annie Jones Park.

The four-and-a-half hour marathon came down to the final doubles match between the teams' No. 1 teams.

The match was tied 3-3 after singles, and they split the first two doubles matches to push the score to 4-4.

At No. 1 doubles, Apex's Wesley Barrett and Viking Edeback faced a 7-4 deficit. But the Apex duo won four straight games to take an 8-7 lead. Green Hope's Jake Bowling and Taylor Elliott won the next game to force a tiebreaker.

Barrett/Edeback took a 3-1 lead in the tiebreaker, only to have Bowling/Elliott tie it at 3-3. Barrett/Edeback won four of the next six points to clinch the victory for the Cougars.

For more, see Wednesday's edition of The Cary News.

Move over, Harold Weinbrecht — another Cary Town Council member has started blogging.

First-term District B council member Don Frantz launched his blog, Don's Cary Town Council Journal, with three posts — so far — today. The first was a test but was followed by his take on Monday's council meeting and then by a plug for the state house campaign of his friend and Apex council member Bryan Gossage.

Weinbrecht, elected mayor in November, went online with his musings in December. So far he has posted every Sunday and the site does not include a comment feature.

Frantz, who uses a different platform than his colleague, has the comment feature on his blog though he has opted to turn it off, at least for the time being. An e-mail unveiling the site said that he is keeping it off "until I get the hang of this."