Chapman, Lipsky take the stage tonight

Performers are ready to leave the night burning.

Country rock singer and songwriter Rachel Lipsky, from Nashville, Tennessee, will open the concert with her band 7 p.m. tonight in the Farmer’s Building at the fairgrounds. After Lipsky’s performance, country music singer Colton Chapman from Fairland will take the stage with his band.

Attendees are encouraged to bring a lawn chair or blanket because seating will be limited.

Lipsky plans to open with a cover from country artist Gretchen Wilson. She’ll also be playing covers from the ’80s, ’90s and recent years, as well as original songs from her album, “Leave The Night Burning.” She said her band might pull out a Metallica song, too.

“We like to throw in a wild card here and there,” she said.

After Lipsky performs, Chapman will be playing his original music along with ‘90s country covers. The band won’t play anything brand new, he said, but there will be songs from the past few years.

At the beginning of the year, Lipsky performed at the Indiana Fairs and Festivals Showcase.

Those gears, the larger painted gray and the smaller bright red, now make up the base of the distinctive lamp that is on display this week in the newly named Bob Schmit Memorial Exhibition Hall at Jay County Fairgrounds. They threaded the electrical wire through the pipe to the pair of bulbs, using other items for decoration.

“We found an old valve and an old little turn wheel, so we connected those up to my lamp too,” said Paxson, who also participates in 4-H projects involving shooting sports, Lego model, farm model and fine arts as well as showing chickens — his favorite because he’s in charge of giving them food and water at home — and goats.

Paxson’s creation from old pieces and parts initially received a red ribbon in the electric category.

“And then we thought, ‘It looks pretty, we’ll put it into other crafts,’” he said. “So we put a polarized plug and some felt on the bottom and put it into crafts and it got grand champion.”

It was an unexpected result to say the least. But he still walked away satisfied.

“I feel pretty good about it,” said Paxson. “Because I guess it isn’t good for actual electric, but it’s a pretty good decoration.”