Bust Out the JNCOs: '90s REWIND Takes the Port This Friday

Olympia does not need much excuse to romanticize the 1990s. This is the town that gave the decade K Records, Kill Rock Stars, the 1991 International Pop Underground Convention, and enough flannel to insulate a mid-size arena. So when a covers act literally named 90s REWIND rolls up to the waterfront this Friday, consider it less a nostalgia trip than a homecoming.

Here's the deal. On Friday, August 7, the Port of Olympia's free Summer Nights at the Port series lands 90s REWIND on the NorthPoint lot, downbeat at 7 p.m. Vendors and the beer garden fire up early, running 6 to 9 p.m., so you can secure a taco and a plastic cup of something cold before the first power chord. The whole thing costs exactly zero dollars, which in the summer of 2026 feels like a small act of civic generosity.

Context, for the uninitiated: Summer Nights at the Port returned this year as the Port's free concert program out at NorthPoint (1210 Marine Dr NE, for the GPS-dependent). Back in July the series brought in LeRoy Bell — a genuine songwriting heavyweight who co-wrote Elton John's 1979 single "Mama Can't Buy You Love" — for its first night. That was the tasteful, grown-up opener. Friday is the sugar rush. A '90s covers band on a working port, with cargo cranes for a skyline and Budd Inlet doing the light show, is about as Olympia as an evening gets without someone starting a record label on the spot.

The specific pleasure of a covers night is that the setlist is a democracy nobody voted in. You don't book 90s REWIND for deep cuts; you book them because somewhere in a two-hour set is the song that was playing the summer you got your license, and it will detonate whether you're ready or not. The band's remit is the entire decade, which is a generous and slightly dangerous mandate — the '90s contained both grunge and the Macarena, and out here on the tarmac all of it is fair game.

Why it matters, beyond the obvious excuse to sing badly in public: free, all-ages, outdoor music is the connective tissue of an Olympia summer, and it is not guaranteed. Downtown has watched independent rooms wobble and close in recent years. A no-cover show on Port land, with food trucks and a beer garden and families sprawled on the asphalt, is the city quietly insisting that live music here should be a public utility, not a luxury good. The Port putting its name and its parking lot behind that idea is worth more than a ticket stub.

A few logistics. It's an outdoor lot, so bring a chair or a blanket and layers — August evenings on the inlet turn on you the second the sun drops behind the Olympics. Get there in the 6 o'clock hour if you want food without a line and real estate without a scramble. And keep an eye on the Port's page in case weather does anything August-in-Washington-shaped.

So: Friday, NorthPoint, 7 p.m., free. Wear the flannel ironically or sincerely, nobody's checking. Just don't be the person who requests "Wonderwall" — this is Olympia, we have standards, and most of them were set before 1999.

Sources: Summer Events at the Port; Arts Aficionado: Week of July 15, 2026