Ian Hunter and all-star Baseball Project at today's Hoboken Arts and Music Festival

It may conjure images of larger festivals for Ian Hunter when he and his band headline today's spring version of the Hoboken Music and Arts Fair, but it's nothing new for the The Baseball Project. The band -- featuring R.E.M.'s Peter Buck and Dream Syndicate vet Steve Wynn -- played so many outdoor gigs in a barnstorming spring training tour that some of them got tans.

Wynn, Pitmon, Buck, McCaughey

"I saw a picture of us from the other day and thought it was an advertisement for Club Med," Wynn wrote recently.

Rain or shine, the festival runs from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Washington Street -- as usual, from First to Seventh streets. Three stages with a dozen bands, 300 artists -- sculptors, photographers and craftspeople -- and a special kiddie ride section make the annual event rival to any Manhattan street fair.

There's even a stretch between 2nd & 3rd Street where collectors of fine art can browse and buy. And, of course, food from many different cultures.

And you don't need to drive there. There's PATH, NJ Transit trains & buses, NY Waterway ferries & the Hudson Bergen light rail: HOW TO GET THERE

Hunter, the former Mott the Hoople frontman and popular solo artist, is sure to get plenty of attention with his Rant Band -- and with good reason. How often do you get to see a living legend perform?

It's no stretch to say there never would have been a Queen or AC/DC or plenty of other hard-rock and metal breakthrough bands if not for the heavier, power-chord heavy influence Hunter had over sprightlier fellow glam-rockers David Bowie and Marc Bolan.

Ian Hunter

SET SPOILER: Hunter's recent shows have included, among others, "Sweet Jane," "All The Way from Memphis," "Roll Away the Stone," "Once Bitten, Twice Shy," "Cleveland Rocks" and "All the Young Dudes."

Still, The Baseball Project could end up the highlight of the day -- playing, as the band is, in the city where some say baseball was invented.

A supergroup of sorts, The Baseball Project is like a traveling all-star team with Buck, Wynn -- the ultimate utility man, having performed or recorded with more than a dozen popular acts -- and Scott McCaughey, leader of The Young Fresh Fellows and The Minus 5, which once backed up Robyn Hithcock, and drummer Linda Pitmon, whose group, The Pretty Babies (a Blondie cover band) is also on the bill.

The Baseball Project has done it all: playing national anthems and "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" at spring training games, going extra innings at South by Southwest in Austin, throwing out the first pitch at a Brewers game and sharing the stage with former Cy Young Award winner Jack McDowell, who admitted he'd been out partying with R.E.M.'s Mike Mills the night before an infamous game when Yankee Stadium fans booed a very un-Black Jack performance.

Last night The Baseball Project played the popular "Live at Drew's," a living-room show in a gorgeous cabin overlooking a lake in Ringwood. They're at Cooperstown in June.

Given the members' various own projects and hometowns, the band didn't play a live gig until a year after releasing its first album in 2008, "Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails" (heh heh), which featured "Chin Music," "Fairweather Fans," and

The second album, "High and Inside," is more of the same fun rock and rock as its predecessor, with clever inside baseball numbers such as "Ichirio Goes to the Moon," "Buckner's Bolero" and "1976," about the late Detroit Tigers phenom Mark "The Bird" Fidrych.

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