The annual Gloucester Fishtown Horribles Parade brought thousands of people out of their houses and into the summer heat for over two hours of live entertainment parading through the city’s streets.
A fireworks show, opening with a salute to America’s 250th, took place over the Outer Harbor following the parade. The evening also featured the Concert on the Boulevard with Scarlett Berg, Scott Parisi and main act The Runaround.
Departing Friday evening from Gloucester High School, hundreds of parade participants made a loop around downtown with many adorning red, white and blue ahead of the nation’s 250th anniversary and Friday night’s fireworks.
“I think it was a great year, it was very diverse, enthusiastic and colorful with a lot of candy,” Gloucester resident Karen Gallagher said.
Like Gallagher many of those in attendance shared the sentiment that this year’s parade was an overall good time.
“We think this is about the longest it’s ever been and we’ve been watching it from the here for years,” Ben Richardson said .
And Aaron and Lauren Brennan agreed, saying they thought this year’s parade was longer than last year’s as well.
“This year seemed pretty good,” Aaron Brennan said.
Lauren Brennan said something she noticed about this year’s parade was that there was more “excitement.”
“Everyone just seems incredibly excited to be at the parade this year,” she said.
Participating in this year’s parade were a number of veterans and patriotic attractions as well as several local youth and high school sports teams, local nonprofits and organizations, three-wheel drifting mini karts and much more, including several “horribles.”
A truck in the parade featured LED displays on its sides showing a revolving display of photographs of Cape Ann veterans taken by City Councilor Jason Grow, a professional photographer. The float was sponsored in part by Awesome Gloucester.
Some of this year’s horribles costumes included Captain America, an “Addams Family”-themed truck and several colonial characters.
One of the participating sports teams was the Marlins, one of Gloucester Little League’s championship winning teams.
“Being in the parade was good,” a group of the 6-, 7 and 8-year-old ballplayers said.
Drew Muise, 7, said that his favorite part about being in the parade was “spraying people,” with water guns of course.
Also enjoying the water guns was 6-year-old Miles Amero. He wasn’t the one doing the spraying but took every opportunity to get sprayed.
“He’s been yelling at every float — ‘squirt gun’,” said Miles’ father, Rusty Amero.
Overall Rusty Amero said this year’s parade was “good, but it was hot.”
“We almost were going to skip it and then we thought we can’t do that,” Maggie Amero said. “The kids were asking about it and it was a long winter so we decided we’re going to embrace it.”