Muay Thai and music: Gold Country Fairgrounds to host 2 new events

Auburn's Gold Country Fairgrounds will be host of two events the next two weekends. First up is this Saturday night when Urijah Faber's A1 Combat comes to town for a Muay Thai fight card that will feature 18 bouts. The event will take place at The Armory, located at 171 Pleasant Ave. "A1 Combat came to us and inquired with us about having the fights here and we thought it'd be a fun and exciting new event to add to our fairgrounds. We haven't had anything like it before," said Gold Country Fairgrounds events administrator Eryn Sasaki. "We hope it can be something we continue. They are looking at having more events here already." The card will feature a title fight at 125 pounds between champion David Torres of Yaw Yan Martial Arts and challenger Jesse D'Lara of 805 Kickboxing. Doors for the event will open at 4 p.m. with the first bell at 5. The following weekend, the fairgrounds will play host to the Gold Rush Country Music Festival presented by Stang Productions. The festival, for which the Auburn Journal is a sponsor, is headlined by Jeremy McComb, whose 2008 song "Cold" peaked at No. 43 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs. Other acts include the Ariel Jean Band, Brodie Stewart Band, Cynthia Renee & Co., Linden Wood and Cash Prophets. The Ariel Jean Band has become a local favorite, playing in bars and clubs around the region. The band is most known for its song "Here," which has amassed more than 100,000 streams on Spotify. "This was a similar situation where (Gold Rush Country Music Festival) reached out to us," Sasaki said. "We just secured Dry Diggins Music Festival and now this so it's kind of ... exciting to the fairgrounds to be incorporating these new music events. It's fun to add more music to the fairgrounds. We haven't had very many concert events here." Sasaki also commented on what it means for Auburn to host different events, saying, "I think that they will be good opportunities for the community to come out and kind of visit and have a good time at the different events that we're now offering." In addition to the bands, the Gold Rush Music Festival will have a variety of interactive experiences for fans of all ages and will feature a unique marketplace of artesian vendors.