Fourth of July fireworks and more to boom Friday at south shore Lake Tahoe

The fireworks won't be the only booming that Lake Tahoe visitors will hear on Independence Day.

After the smoke clears, the celebration goes well into the night on the South Shore.

Lights on the Lake, the South Shore's Fourth of July fireworks show is one of the largest synchronized displays west of the Mississippi, and the American Pyrotechnics Association rates it among the top five displays in the nation.

The show is a collaboration between creators Pyro Spectaculars Inc. and launchers Pyrodigital Consultants, and features a variety of patterns, lights, designs and shapes. The show, which synchronizes the blast-offs from a barge offshore to a soundtrack, begins around 9:45 p.m.

KRLT-FM 93.9 and KOWL-AM 1490 will broadcast the music simultaneously.

The Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority recommends viewing the fireworks from Nevada Beach on Elks Point Road, Regan and El Dorado beaches near Lake Tahoe Action Worldwide Hindquarters, Bijou Community Park on the corner of Johnson and Al Tahoe boulevards, and Baldwin Beach off Emerald Bay Road.

In addition, the Valhalla Arts & Music Festival will hold a holiday barbecue at Tallac Vista on Emerald Bay Road. Banjo player Gordy Ohliger and the Bayou Boys, an American zydeco band, provide the music.

For more information, visit www.valhallatahoe.com.

For those who want a unique " or at least two-of-a-kind " view of the fireworks, the Tahoe Queen and M.S. Dixie II paddlewheelers are cruising the lake on the night of the Fourth.

The Tahoe Queen disembarks from the Ski Run Marina at 7 p.m. on a dinner-dance cruise that includes live music and a four-course meal. The Dixie leaves Zephyr Cove at 7:30 p.m. for a fireworks cruise.

Thousands of visitors thronged Tahoe's beaches and packed the restaurants and bars as temperatures soared toward 90 degrees last July 4. The Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority dedicated the 2007 Lights on the Lake display to emergency personnel in the wake of the Angora fire.

Last One Standing will play a free show at the Lakeside Inn & Casino, and South Shore musician Trey Stone plays at the Beacon on Jameson Beach Road.

There will be an after-party with True Justice and Third Ave at Whiskey Dick's Saloon, and local rockers American Made Disaster join the J.D.K.z and

Coohands at the Tahoe Underground at the foot of Kingsbury Grade. Another South Shore rock group, Waiting for T.I.M. plays its Independence Day show at Elevation.

Well into the night, VEX Nightclub's resident DJ, Brian Rockwell, spins club

hits until 4 a.m.