Top weekend events: San Diego Blues Festival, ‘Wild Goose Dreams,’ Brazilian Day San Diego

San Diego Blues Festival

Noon to 8 p.m. Saturday. Embarcadero Marina Park North, 400 Kettner Blvd., downtown. $25 general admission; $150 VIP tickets; $250 super VIP tickets; cash donations and cans of food will be accepted at the front gate, with all proceeds benefiting the Jacobs & Cushman San Diego Food Bank, which owns the festival. sdbluesfest.com

Vocal dynamo Mavis Staples’ musical partners over the years have ranged from Prince, Ray Charles, Arcade Fire and Gorillaz to Mahalia Jackson, George Jones, Van Morrison and Wilco leader Jeff Tweedy. A 2016 Kennedy Center Honors recipient and 1999 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, this gospel, blues and soul music legend also holds several other distinctions. She is, undoubtedly, the only music star in any genre who has: turned down a marriage proposal from Bob Dylan (back in 1963); shared stages multiple times with civil rights pioneer Dr. Martin Luther King; and been sampled by such hip-hop stars as Ice Cube, Ludacris and Salt ’N’ Pepa. “I’ve had quite a life!” said Staples, who headlines Saturday’s seventh annual AimLoan.com San Diego Blues Festival at Embarcadero Marina Park North. GEORGE VARGA

Electric Vehicle Day

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. Qualcomm Stadium, 9449 Friars Road, San Diego. Free admission. sdge.com/clean-energy/electric-vehicles/electric-vehicle-day

San Diegans will have the opportunity to get plugged in on Saturday during Electric Vehicle Day at Qualcomm Stadium. The San Diego region has one of the highest concentrations of electric vehicles in the nation, with more than 25,500 drivers. Participants can test-drive more than 20 models, including Chevy Bolt and Volt, Ford Focus Electric and Fusion Energi, and BMW i3. The event also includes displays, demonstrations and information booths with experts who will share tips on buying, owning and charging an electric vehicle. Kids activities, entertainment and food trucks round out the day. CAROLINA GUSMAN

The Slants, with L1ght Ra1L and Astro Tan

8 p.m. Sunday. Soda Bar, 3615 El Cajon Blvd., City Heights. $10. (619) 255-7224 or sodabarmusic.com.

The Slants are not the first band with a controversial history set to perform in San Diego. But this Oregon dance-rock quartet is surely the first coming to perform here after winning a landmark Supreme Court victory. That ruling concluded that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office erred in not letting the band register its name, which the agency argued was offensive to Asian-Americans. So expect The Slants — led by Grossmont College grad Simon “Young” Tam — to be in an especially celebratory mood when they perform here Sunday at the 21-and-up Soda Bar. The show is in support of the band’s latest release, “The Band Who Must Not Be Named.” GEORGE VARGA

DJ Coone

9 p.m. Saturday. Bassmnt, 919 Fourth Ave., Gaslamp Quarter. Presale: $10. 18 and up only. bassmntsd.com

After dropping the 16-song “Less Is More” full-length last summer, Belgian DJ Coone released his new single, “Young, Gifted & Proud (The Qontinent Anthem 2017),” in July. Coone — real name Koen Bauweraerts — began producing at the age of 15 and is the founder of the Dirty Workz label, launched in 2006. SCOTT McDONALD

South Bay Pride Art & Music Festival

Noon to 8 p.m. Saturday. Bayside Park, 999 Bayside Parkway, Chula Vista. Free admission. southbaypride.org

Celebrate with the LGBT community during the South Bay Pride Art & Music Festival. The day will be filled with live music, DJs, dancing, food, local artists and exhibits, cocktails and activities for kids. Take a kayaking tour and get a glimpse of the shorebirds, raptors and turtles. Get in a workout with stand-up paddleboard yoga, or just join in a sunset paddle in the evening. Or, ride a bike to the festival along one of the scenic bike routes leading to the park, and the kids can get their faces painted and play at the playground. LISA DEADERICK

“Wild Goose Dreams”

Opens Sunday. 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Wednesdays; 8 p.m. Thursdays-Fridays; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays. Through Oct. 1. La Jolla Playhouse’s Mandell Weiss Forum, 2910 La Jolla Village Drive (Playhouse/UC San Diego Theatre District). $25-$50. (858) 550-1010 or lajollaplayhouse.org

There’s plenty that’s prone to feel unfamiliar to most playgoers about “Wild Goose Dreams,” the Hansol Jung play that’s about to receive its world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse. First, there’s the fact that one of its main characters is a “goose father” — the South Korean term for a dad who has stayed behind in his home country while sending the rest of his family overseas (often to the United States or another English-speaking country) for the kids’ education. Second is the fact that its other main character is a defector from North Korea — a nation that’s been much in the news of late, and yet whose citizens are rarely heard from in the West, in life or on stage. But a curiosity about how the unfamiliar meets up with the everyday is a big part of what drives Jung, a rising writer who’s making her Playhouse debut. JAMES HEBERT

“Reflections on Monet”

Through Jan. 21, 2018. San Diego Museum of Art, 1450 El Prado.$8-$15; free for members.(619) 232-7931 or sdmart.org

French impressionism’s most famous painter, Claude Monet found endless inspiration in the play of light on the water of the lily pond in his garden at Giverny, making more than 250 studies of it in the last 20 years of his life. This summer, one of those works, 1904’s “Le Bassin de Nymphéas,” has come to the San Diego Museum of Art, where it is on display in the second-floor Gluck Gallery, alongside three postimpressionist works of art from the museum’s permanent collection. MAYA KROTH

“Muses of the Old Globe”

Through Oct. 29. Women’s Museum of California, NTC Liberty Station Arts District, 2730 Historic Decatur Road, Barracks 16, San Diego. $5 general admission; $3 seniors and students; free to members and military. (619) 233-7963 or womensmuseumca.org

For the first time ever, the Old Globe Theatre and the Women’s Museum of California will join forces for an exhibit featuring a select panel of women who have been instrumental in the development and creative endeavors of the 82-year-old Balboa Park institution. The exhibit — titled “Muses of the Old Globe” — will highlight 13 women whose contributions were of paramount importance to the history of the theater. The show runs until Oct. 29 at the Women’s Museum in Liberty Station. REBEKAH SAGER

Cardiff Greek Festival

10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday; 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday. Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church, 3459 Manchester Ave., Cardiff. $3; free for children under 12, active military, police and firefighters with ID. (760) 942-0920 or cardiffgreekfest.com

Leave your passport at home and travel to the Greek Islands as Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church welcomes Greek and non-Greeks alike to its 39th annual Cardiff Greek Festival. About 12,000 people are expected to crowd the church grounds to feast on Greek cuisine, listen to Greek music and watch Greek folk dancers perform. “Attendees come from all over,” said Diane Truesdell, publicity and advertising chair for the festival. “Most come from the greater San Diego area, but we’ve had visitors from Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties.” A village marketplace will cover the church sidewalks and grassy areas with vendors selling Greek imports, pottery, fine jewelry, artwork, fresh produce and deli specialties. CAROLINA GUSMAN

The Paul Combs Quintet plays the lost music of Tadd Dameron

8 p.m. tonight. Dizzy’s at Arias Hall (behind the Musicians Association building), 1717 Morena Blvd., Bay Park. $15 students; $20 general. (858) 270-7467 or dizzysjazz.com

Some jazz devotees know Tadd Dameron as the composer of such classics as “Hot House,” “Good Bait” and “If You Could See Me Now.” Others recall him as a supple pianist, whose many collaborators included Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Count Basie, John Coltrane, Artie Shaw and Stan Getz. But Dameron’s heroin addiction and three years in prison impeded his efforts to reach a broader audience, and his 1965 death from cancer at the age of 48 snuffed out Dameron’s formidable talent. One of his largest champions is saxophonist Paul Combs, the author of 2013’s “Dameronia: The Life and Work of Tadd Dameron.” Combs will Dameron’s his music Friday at the all-ages Dizzy’s with an all-star San Diego band that features trumpeter Derek Cannon, bassist Rob Thorsen, drummer Richard Sellers, and either Kamau Kenyatta or Hugo Suarez on piano. GEORGE VARGA

Brazilian Day San Diego

11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday. Belmont Park, 3146 Mission Blvd., Mission Beach. Free admission.(619) 867-3231 or braziliandaysandiego.com

It’s been 10 years since that very first Brazilian Day celebration in San Diego, and this year continues to bring the spirit of Brazil to the beach with live music, food, dancing, activities for kids, sports, arts and crafts, and a carnival parade with elaborate floats and intricate costumes. This community festival attracts thousands with its combination of cultural food and dancing, and the highlight, the parade. (There’s also an official pre-party and beauty pageant on Saturday, as well as a Tem Que Ter Axe event at the University of California San Diego with workshops led by experts in capoeira, Brazilian percussion and dance, and Afro-Brazilian music.) LISA DEADERICK

“Hamlet”

7 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Sundays; 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Through Sept. 22. Old Globe’s Lowell Davies Festival Theatre, Balboa Park. $30 and up. (619) 234-5623 or theoldglobe.org

An imposing, golden suit of armor towers over the proceedings in the Old Globe’s “Hamlet” — a symbol of the dead king whose ghost has commanded his agonized son to avenge his murder. In a way, the ghost of Shakespeare looms over anyone who takes on “Hamlet,” so great is the legacy (and challenge) of this titanic tragedy. At the Globe, director and artistic chief Barry Edelstein and his star, Grantham Coleman, prove more than up to the task, bringing a rich range of emotion and tone to the work, from humor to horror. There will never be a perfect “Hamlet” — the play is far too complex and demanding for that — but you could wait a long time to witness a better one than this. JAMES HEBERT

lisa.deaderick@sduniontribune.com