entertainment

A larger-than-typical crowd jammed into Jackson Square on Friday night to catch Fleetwood Mac tribute band Songbirds perform the legendary band's best-known songs.

The five-piece band formed in 2020 comprises musicians from Genesee County and the immediate area and has been growing in popularity throughout Western New York.

Band members are:

• Dave Cocuzzi - Drums 
• Jeffrey Fischer - Bass/Keys/Vocals
• Christian Hehr - Guitar/Vocals
• Maryssa Peirick - Keys/Vocals 
• Julia Riley - Vocals/Aux Percussion/Ukulele 

Previously: It's more than just ‘Rumours’ that Songbirds pay tribute to Fleetwood Mac

Photos by Philip Casper.

By L. Kent Wolgamott

The guys in Nickelback weren’t dreaming about selling millions of records and filling arenas when they started playing together in tiny Hanna, Alberta, back in 1995.

“We had no idea what this even looked like and what it meant to be winning in the music business,” said bassist Mike Kroeger. “When you're 19 years old, and you're trying to figure out how to play the instrument and maybe get a couple of people to stop and see you play at your local community center or even just come to the garage and pop a couple of beers
and watch, you're not thinking to yourself about arenas.” 

Nor did Kroeger, his younger brother, singer, and songwriter Chad and keyboardist/backing vocalist Ryan Peake have a clue about the reality of the “rock star” life they’ve led since 2005’s chart-topping album “All The Right Reasons” propelled them out of the clubs and opening act slots to arena headliners.

“I'm, right now, sitting on a tour bus that I travel on by myself,” he said. “My blessings are so many that I couldn't possibly try to count them with you. I'm so happy and fortunate to be where I am. But there's no chance any of us had any idea what this was going to look like as we went along.”

And, Nickelback certainly couldn’t have predicted one of the elements that fueled its rise to popularity – Napster and the other “peer-to-peer” file-sharing apps that emerged on the music scene in 1999 -- just before the release of “The State,” the Canadian quartet’s third album – and he band’s first to go gold.

“We were just starting to come up when Napster was just starting to come up and that whole dust-up with Metallica and some of the other artists and societies going on,” Kroeger said. “We were one of the most downloaded and probably uploaded artists on Napster when we were just coming up."

“To be honest, I think that the timing of being the new band at the genesis of this new sort of interface with fans served us tremendously,” he said. “I don't think we'd be where we are now without the whole illegal file sharing.” Napster, Kroeger said, let Nickelback build a relationship with fans who wouldn’t have paid for the music and helped spread the band’s songs beyond radio and the tight selection of the band’s hits that would get played a few times a day.

A quarter century later, however, Kroeger has some issues with what arose when Napster undermined the industry by providing free music–streaming services, which largely do the same.

“What that kind of relationship has done to the music business since Napster, I'm not as happy about,” he said. “It's essentially hollowed out about 65% of the capital in the music industry. There's no sort of licensing."

“It's a very rare thing to see a label or somebody else actually investing money to develop talent now because there's just no money,” Kroger said. “That exploratory capital just doesn't exist anymore.”

As Kroeger talked about the growth of Nickelback – “I wouldn't want to sound too self-aggrandizing to say evolution, like we're kind of closing in on some kind of perfection or something” – he turned to speaking of how Chad Kroeger has gotten ever better as a songwriter. “I think he’s got it down,” he said.

Chad Kroeger’s songwriting, Nickelback’s now two-decade-plus experience, and the versatility within its music – hard rock, metal, ballads, love songs, and nostalgic songs -- have combined to make the band better, record by record, year by year, Kroeger said. 

These qualities can be heard on “Get Rollin’” -- the band’s new album and the songs from it that get nightly showcases in Nickelback’s set. 

“We’re doing three every night on the tour, stuck in there with the old standbys,” Kroeger said. “It’s not like we put them into a block together where everybody’s gonna go buy a beer...We want to keep our momentum up on stage and keep people excited.” 

While it rarely, if ever, makes headlines, Nickelback is a band led by brothers, who, defying the norm set by The Kinks and Oasis, have managed to get along since day one. 

“Truthfully, not everybody can do that,” Kroeger said. “We all know about the bands that have brothers in them that have made the papers or whatever. There was one point really early in our career I'll never forget. We'd gone overseas. I remember where I was, in London. I got this phone call in the middle of the night. It was a person on our record label’s team. They were suggesting Chad and I get into a public fistfight in London to drum up some noise. I was just like, ‘Okay, I know you're, I know you think you're trying to help, but that's a level that we will not stoop to, and that's it.’” 

And the fact that Nickelback fills arenas night after night is evidence that thousands of people like the band, for which Kroeger is grateful. “Just to hear that phrase – It never gets old –  filling arenas,” Kroeger said. “It's an incredible, humbling gift”.

Nickelback will be performing at Darien Lake Performing Arts Center on Wednesday.

Cast members and leaders of Batavia Players' Summer Youth Theater want you to grab a seat for their production of “Cry Baby, The Musical,” this weekend, and the only question is: just where will that seat be?

Director Patrick Burk has been teasing the community’s curiosity with the debut of this show, via the sign outside of City Centre and an online post about the long-awaited opening of the new Main St. 56 Theater. 

"We have done a great job, thanks to our community, raising needed funds for seating so that we could open the theater for our summer program.  We still have a lot of work to do to complete the overall project.  We are at approximately $41,000 of our $265,000 goal," Burk said Wednesday. "It is our hope that the community will continually support this fundraising effort so that we can complete the project by the New Year."

Even by Burk’s own recounting of the process, it’s been a long, arduous journey of paperwork, grant applications, construction details, COVID delays, increased labor and raw material costs, and, most importantly — fundraising, fundraising, fundraising. 

"Much of the funds we raised paid for rent, interest, insurance and utilities while the project was on hold during Covid.  Now, we have to raise all that funding again to finish the project. We have had a huge outpouring of donated materials and sweat equity from a number of individuals and local companies. More is needed," he said. "It is our hope that the community will look at this beautiful facility and donate to make it happen."

In May, Burk was at best hopeful for a September splash of the new downtown theater at Batavia City Centre. Batavia Players ramped up a “Be My Guest” campaign seeking donations of any amount to help pay for theater amenities, such as that seat you’re going to hunker down in to watch this musical billed as a rebellious teen comedy based on the 1990 film “Cry-Baby.”

"We are very excited to be opening this weekend with the cult classic 'Cry Baby' and present to the community this highly entertaining and fantastic production," Burk said.  "Our cast is amazing."

Based in 1954, when everyone likes Ike, nobody likes communism, and Wade "Cry-Baby" Walker is the coolest boy in Baltimore, this show features a bad boy with a good cause: truth, justice and the pursuit of rock and roll. 

Wade and the square rich girl, Allison, are star-crossed lovers at the center of this world, with plenty of detractors and distractions to get in the way for a fun plot. Or, as the show’s website states: It's Romeo and Juliet meets High School Hellcats.

“Filled with unforgettable songs and a truly unique and fresh story, Cry-Baby is a perfect choice for any theatre looking to add a-rockin' good time to their season,” the site states. “Cry-Baby, Allison and Baltimore's energetic juvenile delinquents will dance their way right into your audience's heart!”

Shows are at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and at 2 p.m. Sunday at 56 Main St., Batavia. 

Tickets are $18 for adults, $16 for students and seniors. Go HERE to purchase. 

Why would a few friends in and around their 20s with roots in and around Batavia come together to play the music of Fleetwood Mac, a band whose biggest-selling album, “Rumours,” came out when their parents were barely out of their teens themselves?

It's timeless music, they say. It's authentic. It's fun and challenging to play. And everybody knows and loves the songs, even their coworkers and friends.

The Songbirds is comprised of

• Dave Cocuzzi - Drums 
• Jeffrey Fischer - Bass/Keys/Vocals
• Christian Hehr - Guitar/Vocals
• Maryssa Peirick - Keys/Vocals 
• Julia Riley - Vocals/Aux Percussion/Ukulele 

The one person who connected all musicians together was Jeffrey Fischer, who met Peirick (the Christine McVie of the band) during high school in a summer musical theater camp and met Riley (Stevie Nicks) at an all-state chorus event while in high school, and Fischer played in various bands with Cocuzzi and Hehr.

All along, they all had a common love for Fleetwood Mac, but things didn't get rolling until Hehr posted on Facebook that he dreamed of playing in a Lindsay Buckingham/Fleetwood Mac tribute band.

Hehr, Fischer, and Cocuzzi joked around about it.  The talk got serious when they learned Peirick and Riley were moving back to the Batavia area.

"I kind of got roped into this," Peirick said. "Batavia is home to me, and I moved back in 2020 and reconnected with Jeff. At the same time, Julia moved back from Portland, Oregon. They sort of pitched the idea to me. Jeff and Dave were like, 'Hey, do you want to be in a Fleetwood Mac tribute band? I said, 'I'll try anything once, right?' I've loved Fleetwood Mac for a long time, but I didn't think it would take off like this. I'm very glad that it did, but I definitely kind of got pressured into it, if you will."

The band played its first gig in Attica in December 2021. They're now playing six to eight gigs a month. A lot of them are private parties, which Riley said also gives the band a chance to stretch out and explore other bands from the same period, such as the Eagles.

"The parties are fun for us because we get to expand beyond Fleetwood and into other high-energy rock. We're Mac-heads through and through, but with the talent and interests across our group, it's always fun to explore other styles," Riley said.

On Friday, they will play what is arguably their biggest gig in Batavia yet -- a concert in Jackson Square.  It's not their local debut -- they played a block party on South Swan last summer -- but Jackson Square shows always draw a lot of local music fans.

Buckingham to Nicks and McVey
Hehr doesn't shy away from being called a Fleetwood Mac nerd.  He's the guy who tracks down every possible live recording, watches all of the documentaries, and reads the books and articles. He's just the guy a tribute band needs to bring some historical context to the act and also the musical knowledge to help the band get inside the heads of the artists they're emulating.

"I like studying the parts and finding the patterns in the songwriting -- so, like how Stevie writes versus how Lindsay writes, and identifying those elements in it," Hehr said. "So when we bring it into practice, if we're having trouble figuring out a certain part, I can contribute and say, 'well, knowing Stevie, her chord progressions are very simple and very back and forth, so chances are, it's this chord.'"

Hehr's love of Fleetwood Mac started with guitar. He started playing when he was 13, but it wasn't long before he abandoned picks. He preferred early on playing with his fingers, and this led to an appreciation of fingerstyle guitar, an area where Lindsey Buckingham is a master.

"I just had an affinity for Fleetwood Mac through Lindsey Buckingham's playing," Hehr said. "There was one song I always vowed to myself that if I could ever play it, I would consider that I've made it as a guitar player, and that was 'Never Going Back Again.'"

"He uses Travis picking often," Hehr explained. "'Never Going Back Again' is a good example of him using compound rhythms. He's playing quarter notes with his thumb, but he's doing triplets with his other fingers at the same time, and somehow it works out. It's just incredible.

"When I was finally able to play that song, I was like, I felt so good about myself. I felt very accomplished because that song is very intense and very complicated. I loved the challenge of it, and it was gratifying to finally get it."

Early Mac
While most of the band gravitates to the era of Fleetwood Mac that featured Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks, Jeffrey Fischer is more of a Peter Green-era Mac fan.

Peter Green was the original lead guitarist and a bit of a mythical figure among guitar aficionados because he accomplished so much in such a few years before apparently losing his mind to LSD.

"Peter Green, in my opinion, was the most progressive, in the weirdest experimental way, pushing the boundaries of what blues is, and it's just great to listen to. It's more psychedelic. It's breaking all the rules in the best ways," Fischer said.

And because the Songbirds are a group of top-notch musicians, they love including some of those early Mac tunes in their sets.

"It's really an opportunity for myself and the other instrumentalists to jam out and show off our chops," Fischer said.

But what he appreciates most about being in a Fleetwood Mac tribute band, he said, are the close harmonies.  Since he's the bass player, the John McVie of the band, and McVie isn't known for overly complicated bass parts, it gives Fischer a chance to sit back, in a manner of speaking, and enjoy the vocals.

"I've always wanted to be in a band that was able to sing very tight together," Fischer said. "I would say my chorus teacher in high school really instilled this love of harmony in me. The Beach Boys, Doobie Brothers, the Eagles, all of these bands that are able to sing so close, even the Beatles, he instilled in me how beautiful harmonies can be. And not only just in terms of music but in terms of like a life philosophy, how it is just great to harmonize with one another."

The Songbirds have been a chance for Peirick to get back to musical performance, something she studied for two years at SUNY Fredonia but took a break from for a few years to take on a nursing career.

"It definitely scratched that itch for me," Peirick said. "When they asked me to come back to do this, it had been approximately eight years since I'd touched a piano. And I guess they weren't lying when they said it's like riding a bike."

The live music experience
While some tribute bands put their own touches on classic songs, and others try to precisely reproduce what audiences are used to hearing from studio recordings, the Songbirds have studied Fleetwood Mac's live recordings and try to bring that energy and vitality to their performances.

"There are a lot of tribute bands that recreate the studio tracks," Hehr said. "That alone is super duper challenging. You're compensating for layers and layers of tracks (recorded in the studio). I think one of the areas we excel in is being able to listen to Fleetwood Mac and ask, 'How did they do it live? How would they have done it back in 1976? And what parts were they prioritizing?' And then that clues us into what they were thinking about -- what was the most important part of that song for them to do? Why is Lindsey not playing this part? Why is Stevie not singing this part? So, in that way, we are trying to recreate that live Fleetwood Mac feel."

Fischer likes trying to recreate the Fleetwood Mac experience as a live band because that is what it was like going to see the band in concert back in the 1970s. That discovery of something new is why people paid for a ticket in the first place.

"It carries on that torch," Fischer said. "It carries on that tradition, that live music is something you can't experience anywhere else. Every live show is different, and you're getting something unique at each show."

Peirick said the Songbirds, with their play-it-live ethos, bring something new to the tribute band concept.

And she isn't surprised to see people across generations going for it.

We all know the songs
Everybody, she said, loves the music.

"It was just the golden era of California music," Peirick said. "(Rumours) was the perfect summer album that people can just pick up at any point and say, 'Wow, this is really catchy and really good.' I think that it stood the test of time because of that. I think that a lot of people, regardless of age, find it really agreeable."

She recalled talking to a trainee at work recently. She mentioned she played in a Fleetwood Mac tribute band. 

"Fleetwood Mac? Who's that," the trainee asked.

So she played her three songs -- "Go Your Own Way," "Dreams," and "Everywhere." 

"And she said, 'Oh, these are all Fleetwood Mac. I definitely know Fleetwood Mac.' So I think that's part of the appeal, too, right? It's the music that we all know, that we're all familiar with. But we (the Songbirds) sort of bring new energy to it because we're doing the live versions of the way they perform the songs instead of the studio versions. So it's a fresh twist on an old favorite."

Fischer is pleased to see things working out so well for a young band that started out with a half-joke of "Let's start a Fleetwood Mac tribute band."

"We're receiving a lot more attention than I ever thought we would," Fischer said. "We're playing venues that bands who have been together for years and years have not had the opportunity to play. We're just really excited to see where it takes us."

Songbirds play this Friday, Aug. 11, in Jackson Square from 7 to 9 p.m. and from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. Sept. 3 at Triangle Park in Oakfield. Admission is free.

Supporting acts for headliner Don Felder were the High Water Band and Yachut Fathers.

Photos by Nick Serrata.

American Rock band Matchbox Twenty headlined at Darien Lake Performing Arts Center on a cooler Tuesday night in front of 9,000 fans, playing songs on their Slow Dream Tour.  

Some popular hits include 3 A.M., Unline and Push.

The band originally was first scheduled to play on Aug. 29. 2020. That show was canceled because of restrictions on large gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The supporting act was Matt Nathanson.

Photos by Steve Ognibene

After 20-plus years as the drummer in Godsmack, one would think drummer Shannon Larkin had seen it all – and undoubtedly he has seen a lot. But he said when the group wrapped up rehearsals in April for the first leg of 2023 touring, he heard Sully Erna, the singer, songwriter, rhythm guitarist, and founding member of Godsmack, say something he’s rarely expressed ahead of the launch of a tour.

“By the end (of rehearsals), Sully isn’t usually like ever ‘We sound great.’ It’s always ‘Ah, you know, we’ve got work to do.’ Even (after) a year on tour, he’s still messing with the set list,” Larkin said. “We ended this with him (Erna), who never really gives it up and says we sound great, he says ‘We sound great. We’re going to be OK.’”

The guys in Godsmack – Erna, Larkin, guitarist Tony Rombola and bassist Robbie Merrill – have good reason to be on point. This will be the last time the band does what’s known as a cycle tour, where music acts typically spend a year-plus on the road promoting their latest album or EP.

Erna and his bandmates have recently announced that their new album, “Lighting Up the Sky,” will be their last as Godsmack. With that, the band will no longer need to do the cycle tours that have followed each of their eight studio albums. It’s not the end of the road for Godsmack, just time to ease up on what has been a rather all-consuming career.

“I hope everybody knows we’re not going away,” Larkin said, reassuring fans that Godsmack is not breaking up. “We will go out and play after this (cycle tour promoting) ‘Lighting Up the Sky’ is all done. We’re going to call each other up and say ‘Hey man, let’s go rock two or three weeks of shows this year’... And (we’ll) be able to control our lives for once instead of music controlling us.”

That last sentence gets to a key reason Godsmack are done with making full albums. Since seeing their 1999 self-titled debut album go quadruple platinum and spawn four top 10 singles, Erna, Larkin, Rombola and Merrill have felt pressure to live up to the successes of their previous output every time they’ve made a new album.

They’ve thrived despite that, building a catalog that includes 26 top 10 singles, 12 of which have gone No. 1 on “Billboard” magazine’s mainstream rock chart. But it’s time to say goodbye to the weight of expectations.

“You have lots of pressure to be successful and to continue to be successful. And the pressure sometimes is in your own mind and you’re putting it on yourself,” Larkin said. And the fact is, Godsmack have achieved everything the four band members set out to accomplish.

“We finally came to the decision that gosh, we’ve climbed the mountain that we envisioned reaching the top of when we are 10-, 12-, 13-year-old kids picking up our instruments,” Larkin said. “We don’t want to quit. But we do want to just, I like to say, jump off of the machine and not have to sell product after so many years of touring and selling product.”

There are other reasons why Godsmack will gear things down after the “Lighting Up the Sky” cycle. Some of the band members want to spend time with their families or have other hobbies and interests they want to pursue. And with the band members in their 50s, it’s not getting any easier to meet the physical demands of extensive tours.

The band members also feel with “Lighting Up the Sky,” they’re ending their run of Godsmack albums on a high note. Larkin said “Lighting Up the Sky” was the easiest album Godsmack has made, and to a man, the band members consider it their best release yet.

“For this one, we wrote over 20 songs. We had three years, with the pandemic and stuff. In fact, at one point we had written pretty much a whole record of music, and it was a totally different thing where it was like Pink Floyd, long-ass songs,” he said. “We wrote like 11 songs (initially) and we ended up keeping ‘Surrender,’ ‘Growing Old’ and ‘Red, White & Blue.’ Those three stayed. We had taken a break from writing and he (Erna) comes back with ‘Soul On Fire’ and God, it was just relentless, ‘What About Me’ and ‘Let’s Go.’ Just all of these songs started just pouring out and it was so easy for us and we were like ‘Wow!’”

Now it’s time to hit the road, and Larkin said several of the new songs will be in Godsmack’s visually spectacular shows. (“We blow a lot of stuff up live,” Larkin noted with a chuckle.) The band members, after all, are promoting “Lighting Up the Sky.” But fans will hear plenty of the hits, too.

“We know that look, even if our new record is our favorite one and it’s great, we can’t oversaturate a set list when we have all of these radio hits that people expect to hear,” Larkin said.

Godsmack will be playing at Darien Lake Performing Arts Center on Sunday.

Genesee County's own Audibull provided live music entertainment at the Genesee County Fair on Friday.

Audibull is Tim Pitcher on guitar, Bill Christiano on bass, Chris Iannone on drums, and Todd Tracy on lead vocals.

Photos by Howard Owens.

Herman's Hermits starring Peter Noone rocked the Downs on Friday along with supporting acts the Grass Roots and the All-Star Band.

Photos by Nick Serrata.

Sitting in the entertainment tent at the Genesee County Fairgrounds on Thursday evening, if you closed your eyes, you could be forgiven if you thought you really hearing Don Felder, Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Bernie Leadon, and Randy Meisner

The musicianship was that precise, and the harmonies that tight as a group of veteran Buffalo-area musicians, now performing at the Eaglez Tribute Band, ran through 28 hits of the Eagles over three hours of music.

The Eaglez are, in reality:

• Randy Barnard, Lead Guitar/Keyboard
• Dennis Makowski,  Guitar/Vocals
• Bob Brummitt, Bass Guitar/Vocals
• John White, Rhythm Guitar/Vocals
• Mike Nierenberg,  Vocals/Percussion
• Micky Judware / Rich Keigley, Drums
• Paul Vanacore, Sax/Keyboard

Note: Sadly, and unknown at show time, Randy Meisner passed away on Thursday. An original member of the Eagles, he was 77. Glenn Frey, another founding member, passed away in 2016.

Previously: The Eaglez highlights GC Fair's five nights of live music that spans genres and eras

Editor's Note: The Batavian has a booth at the fair in partnership with WBTA as part of the official Genesee County Fair Media Center. Stop by to say hello in the Exhibition Building. We are an exhibitor and are providing coverage of the fair all week long as a proud supporter of the county fair, 4-H and the dedicated volunteers of the Ag Society. 

If you appreciate our fair coverage, as well as all of our coverage of Genesee County, you can help us continue news coverage by signing up today for Early Access Pass.

It’s a bit ironic to know the song that saved Jelly Roll’s music career is called “Save Me.” The ballad seeped in despair is getting a second life as a featured track on Jelly Roll’s new album, “Whitsitt Chapel,” as a duet with Lainey Wilson. 

“Save Me” first appeared in a stark acoustic guitar-and-vocal version on Jelly Roll’s 2020 independently released album “Self Medicated,” and the success the man born as Jason DeFord is enjoying now can be traced back to that song.

“For lack of a better word, ‘Save Me’ went viral,” Jelly Roll said in a mid-July phone interview. “It was undeniable. I had built a pretty good career. Keep in mind I had a billion views on my YouTube show. But I couldn’t get it, I was missing that one song that made people go ‘Oh, OK, this guy can do it all.’ I think ‘Save Me’ was that.”

Soon Jelly Roll was getting meetings with multiple record labels. He said the labels had plenty of ideas for his music, but it wasn’t until he met with Jon Loba, president of BMG Nashville, that he heard what he wanted to hear from a label.

“The cool thing was from go, Loba and everybody in the office sat me down and said the biggest thing we want from you is to do what you’ve been doing. It was awesome. I had complete creative control,” Jelly Roll said.

“Save Me,” however, wasn’t the song that put Jelly Roll on the radar of country and rock audiences. First came “Dead Man Walking,” a robust rocker from his first album on BMG, 2021’s “Ballads of the Broken,” which topped “Billboard” magazine’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart and pointed to Jelly Roll’s potential to cross genres. Then a rootsy acoustic ballad from that album, “Son of a Sinner,” topped the magazine’s Country Airplay chart and spent a record-setting 28 weeks atop the Emerging Artist chart, which tracks the most popular developing artists across all genres.

Now “Whitsitt Chapel” is out, and he is starting a lengthy, highly anticipated tour headlining outdoor amphitheaters. Jelly Roll is doing his best to make sure his show lives up to the expectations.

“Knowing we have a chance to touch so many people, we’ve spared no expense,” he said of the show, which will feature not only new songs but selections dating back as far as to 2013. “I’m bringing tons of lights, video screens. Our goal is to kind of bring a mixture of a hip-hop show, a rock show, a country show and a little bit of a backroad tent revival.”

It’s quite a turn of fortune for someone who grew up on the streets of the working-class Antioch neighborhood of Nashville, did drugs and spent parts of his teens and 20s in jail for offenses ranging from robbery to drug dealing.

It was during one of those stints behind bars, though, that Jelly Roll, 38, was spurred to break his cycle of dead-end behavior. Informed by a guard that he had just become a father to a newborn daughter, he set his sights on making something of himself. Having begun making mix tapes in his teens, he decided that music was his ticket to a better future.

Around 2009, Jelly Roll began releasing a steady stream of indie albums, mixtapes and singles. His early music was predominantly rap and hip-hop, but as time went on, he began to broaden his sound.

“Ballads of the Broken” offered a preview of where Jelly Roll is now taking his music, as it spanned country, rock, pop and hip-hop. “Whitsitt Chapel” offers a similar cross-genre appeal as it touches on country (“Save Me,” “Nail Me,” and “Church”), muscular rock (“Halfway to Hell” and “The Lost”), hip-hop (“Unlive”) and songs that blend those styles (“Need A Favor,” which is currently a top 5 country single) with raw and emotional lyrics that continue to touch on his past struggles, but hint at the redemption he has started to attain.

It took some time and effort for Jelly Roll to find the direction of the album, as he set aside more than 70 songs after he realized only two of those songs – “Church” and “Hungover in a Church Pew” – were calling to him.

“I said, ‘Man, these two songs kept kind of putting their hands up to me, ‘Church’ and ‘Church Pew,’” he said. “Then I started thinking how God had kind of brought me to these two songs out of 70, the two I kept thinking of. And I was like, ‘That’s it. I’m going to write an album called ‘Going To Church.’”

“And my producer, Zach Crowell, sat me down and said, ‘What was the name of that church you went to?’ (I said) ‘Whitsitt Chapel,’” Jelly Roll said. “He was like, ‘You write songs that nobody else in this town could sing because they’re so personal to you.’ He said ‘Anybody in this town could have an album called ‘Going To Church.’ There’s only one person in this town who could have an album called ‘Whitsitt Chapel.’ That was the birth of the ‘Whitsitt Chapel' album. Me and Zach Crowell scratched everything but those two songs and started from there.”

Jelly Roll will be performing at Darien Lake Performing Arts Center on Thursday.

The Marshall Tucker Band, along with openers Alyssa Trajan and JB Aaron, rocked the Downs this past Friday night.

Photos by Nick Serrata.

At one point during an early May phone interview, Paul Doucette of Matchbox Twenty considered the longevity of his popular band. “It’s hard to stay together for 30 years,” he said. “That’s why a lot of bands don’t do it.”

To be completely accurate, Matchbox Twenty won’t hit their 30th year as a band until 2025, but the guitarist knows a thing or two about how difficult it can be for a band to remain intact for so long.

In Matchbox Twenty’s case, there have been several periods where the band went inactive – usually involving times when singer Rob Thomas was making and then touring behind one of the four solo albums that have made him a major star in his own right.

Those projects had idled Matchbox Twenty in 2005 and 2006, 2009 and 2010, 2015 and 2016 and in 2019. In the early years, things were busy mostly good, as Matchbox Twenty became one of the most popular bands going. The 1996 debut album, “Yourself or Someone Like You,” sold some 12 million copies and yielded four hi singles, including the chart-topping “3AM,” “Push,” “Real World” and “Back To Good.” The 2000 follow-up, “Mad Season,” added four more hits, including the multi-chart-topping “Bent,” and 2002’s “More Than You Think You Are,” included the top 5 hits “Unwell” and “Bright Lights.”

But then Thomas, who has gained individual fame for co-writing and singing on the monster Carlos Santana hit “Smooth,” in 1999, launched his solo career. And since then, Matchbox Twenty has released only three albums – including 2007’s “Exile On Mainstream,” which combined 11 hits with seven new songs. The most recent release was “North” in 2012.

Doucette admitted Matchbox Twenty’s sporadic schedule had created points where the group could have split up. Guitarist Kyle Cook, in fact, left the band briefly in 2016 before rejoining in time for a tour the following year that seemed to put the band back on solid footing.

And Doucette reached a point where he had concluded Matchbox Twenty were done making albums. He, Thomas, Cook and bassist Brian Yale would tour from time to time, but that would be the extent of the band’s activity. It was not a notion he welcomed.

“When I sort of got to the point where I was like ‘Yeah, I think that we’re done making records,’ I legitimately grieved that process. Like that was a loss to me,” Doucette said. “But once I went through that process, I could look at it differently. I could look at it and be like ‘You know what, we can go out and we can play. We’re ridiculously fortunate to be able to do that and people will still come.’ And I have all these other things that I can do and I can concentrate on doing this (scoring). And maybe that’s not so bad.”

So Matchbox Twenty remained together, and after Thomas finished his solo tour in 2019, plans were formed for the band to return to touring. But of course, the pandemic hit and tours for 2021 and 2022 were pushed back once more to this summer.

But there was a major silver lining to the second delay. With the schedule cleared for 2022, Matchbox Twenty made a new album, “Where the Light Goes,” which arrived on May 26.

For “Where the Light Goes,” the four musicians reinvented their process for writing music. Where on past albums, the band members tended to send each other acoustic solo versions of songs and build out the arrangements together, Doucette, Thomas, Cook and Yale worked separately on the songs for the new album – a process necessitated by the pandemic and the fact the four band members live in different cities. 

Doucette said the band found that by working separately and e-mailing in-progress tracks back and forth to each other (as well as to producer Gregg Wattenberg, who was heavily involved in helping the band members to complete the songs) they were able to explore song ideas more thoroughly and in some cases, fully realize songs that might have been abandoned in the past if the song hadn’t come together quickly either in the writing/demo stage or when the four musicians gathered to flesh out the acoustic demos of songs.

The new approach to songwriting, though, didn’t alter the core pop-rock sound of Matchbox Twenty, and “Where The Light Goes” features a fairly even mix of concise and catchy uptempo tunes (“Friends,” “Don’t Get Me Wrong” and the title track), and richly melodic ballads (“Hang On Every Word,” “Warm Blood,” “One Hit Love”).

This summer’s twice-delayed tour will feature some songs from “Where The Light Goes,” Doucette said, but he noted that some fans held onto tickets purchased in 2021 and 2022 expecting a greatest hits show, and the band will play a good mix of new and older material.

“It’s a longer set than we’ve done on the past couple of tours,” he said “That gives us the advantage of being able to play a solid two hours a night. So we have more time, which is great. And we think we’ve got a good balance of it.” 

Matchbox Twenty will be performing at Darien Lake Performing Arts Center on Tuesday.

Knight Patrol headlined the music tent on Day two of the Genesee County Fair, a day full of sun and fun and games at the Midway, along with animal contests and pig races.

To view or purchase photos, click here.

Photos by Steve Ognibene

BB Dang kicked off the 2023 live music lineup of the Genesee County Fair on Saturday with a set heavy on hits and tight musicianship in front of a packed entertainment tent.

BB Dang is:

• Isabella Barbagallo, vocals
• Reid Burton, vocals and guitar
• Alex Sherwood, guitar
• Mike Valle, drums
• Abby Johnson, keyboards and vocals

Cameron Carlson, a Byron-Bergen graduate, performed his last show with the band before heading off to college.

The rest of the week's lineup:

• Sunday at 7 p.m., Knight Patrol
• Thursday at 7 p.m., the Eaglez Tribute Band
• Friday at 7:30 p.m., Audibull
• Saturday at 7 p.m., BarnStorm

See previously: The Eaglez highlights GC Fair's five nights of live music that spans genres and eras

Photos by Howard Owens

It was a full house in Jackson Square for the Business Improvement District's weekly Friday night concert, this time featuring The Bluesway Band.

For one song, Guitarist Steve Kruppner played a Harley Benton BigTone White Trem that is a featured prize in a drawing contest at the Genesee County Fair this week sponsored by The Batavian (see video above).

The Bluesway Band is:

• Chas DelPlato, keyboards, vocal 
• Anthony DelPlato, guitar/vocals 
• Brad Kujawski, bass/vocals 
• Pete Metzler, drums/vocals 
• Steve Kruppner, guitar/vocals
• Special guest for Friday night: Frank Minuto, Congas/percussion

Photos by Howard Owens.

It was as if we arranged the tribute band The Eaglez to perform at Genesee County Fair during The Batavian’s debut, along with WBTA, for the first-time official Media Center at the Fair this coming week.

Along with the Media Center’s booth, The Batavian is sponsoring an eagle drawing contest, with the first prize being Harley Benton BigTone Trem guitar for some lucky artist aged 17 or under. The guitar for the winning eagle drawing (randomly selected from among staff favorites) will be presented during The Eaglez concert on Thursday (July 27) night!

This will now be the third such guitar giveaway sponsored by The  Batavian, and it might seem like a completely incongruous thing for an online media company to do, right? A news site giving away a musical instrument? Shouldn't we give away a typewriter or a camera?

Well, first, let’s explain the eagle-drawing contest.

An eagle is the primary essence of The Batavian’s logo, borrowed from the Upton Monument, which sits at the intersection of routes 5 and 63 in downtown Batavia. Publisher Howard Owens wanted to capture that symbol along with the name of this city he now holds dear after setting down roots more than 15 years ago.

“The Upton Monument is our community's most important and significant landmark, and the eagle that sits atop of it represents independence and courage, two characteristics of good news organizations,” Owens said.  "When planning our new logo, the eagle seems a natural way to represent our commitment to the community and to fearless and honest journalism."

The guitar contests are something Owens said he wanted to do to give back to the community to promote an appreciation for the magic and beauty of music among its youth.

Owens has been a music fan from his most formative years growing up in California, listening to The Beatles, the Beach Boys, and Elvis. He had musical ambitions early on, but his parents couldn't afford the investment in music lessons and instruments, and by the time he did get a cheap, almost unplayable guitar, there was nobody in his family or neighborhood to help him develop his skills.  

"The world of music is so different today than when I was young -- there are guitars available that play and sound great, stay in tune, and are well made that are affordable," Owens said. "The online resources for players of all skill levels, from the first-day beginner to the advanced player, just didn't exist for most of my life. I get excited when I think about the musical opportunities available to kids today, and I want to help point them in the right direction."

No, not everyone is going to be a rock star, Owens admits, but he is aware of how many local musicians there are who have humbly started out on a family keyboard, a hand-me-down guitar or a used set of drums, who continue to gig today, or have found other avenues for careers and secondary incomes in music, or just continue to play for their own enjoyment.

“Batavia, Genesee County, the GLOW region is bursting with musical talent," Owens said. "I'm inspired by so many people, from Bill McDonald and Justin Williams to Tom Ryan, Daniel King, Ray Williams, Steve Kruppner, Dylan DeSmit, Michael Murray, Alex Feig, and the whole Del Plato family, among so many others, that I want to see that local musical tradition continue. Paul Draper shared with The Batavian recently how his musical career began with an inexpensive keyboard, and he's become one of the region's top gigging performers. It's great to see so much talent in our community, and I think we, as a community, can develop more young talent."

For the first two contests, The Batavian set up a booth for a one-day event and gave away an acoustic guitar and a knockoff of a Fender Telecaster.  Since the fair is a bigger, multiday event, Owens said he wanted to find a guitar that would really grab people's attention and get kids excited about the possibility of winning a quality musical instrument.  He figured an archtop guitar would fit the bill, and was excited when he found the Harley Benton BigTone Trem in white.

The guitar, he explained, is patterned after a Gretsch White Falcon, which among guitar enthusiasts is an iconic instrument. A new White Falcon costs thousands of dollars.  The Harley Benton guitar is a fraction of the cost, and Harley Benton is considered one of the world's best budget-line guitar companies.

Steve Kruppner, an accomplished solo performer and guitarist for The Bluesway Band, played it on Wednesday and said he's impressed by it (see video above).

"This is extremely well built," Kruppner said during his test drive of the guitar. "Like I said, I learned guitar on what was probably an Italian-made copy of a Fender Strat. It was just a complete piece of junk. It was unplayable.  The strings were this far off the neck and they wouldn't tune. But this guitar is really sweet. I wouldn't mind having one myself just to have at home right now."

Kruppner admired the tuners, neck, solid build of the guitar, its Bigsby-style tremolo, white finish, gold trim and clean sound of the pickups.  The guitar is both a great lead instrument and a great strummer, like an acoustic guitar, he said.

"I tell you what, if I was 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 years old and I got this guitar, I'd be thrilled," Kruppner said. "This is a far better guitar than what I learned on, I can tell you."

To enter the contest, visit the Genesee County Fair, go to the Exhibit Hall, find the Official Genesee County Fair Media Center, where both The Batavian and WBTA will be set up with booths, and ask for an entry form.  While at the booth, draw your best version of an eagle (entries must be drawn at the booth or nearby). The Batavian staff will select their favorite drawings to be entered into a random drawing.  To enter, you must agree to return to the fair on Thursday night for the Eaglez concert (a free pass will be provided to the winner's family) where you will receive the guitar on stage during the concert.

For adults, there is also an eagle drawing contest, and the prize is a $100 gift certificate from the original Red Osier Landmark Restaurant. The winner will be asked to return to the fair at an agreed-upon appointment time for a promotional photo and to receive the gift certificate.

The People's Choice award is a harmonica.  The Batavian staff will pick its 20 favorite drawings from all the entries, and visitors to the Media Center on Thursday and Friday will vote for their favorite of the 20 selected. The winner will be asked to return to the fair on Saturday for a photo-op and to receive the harmonica.

Steve Kruppner and The Bluesways Band perform at 7 p.m. on Friday in Jackson Square as part of the Business Improvement District's weekly concert series.

Le Roy resident Justin Williams performs his solo acoustic set at Batavia's Original Pizza on Wednesday evening.

Batavia's Original hosts live music on its patio every Wednesday from 7 to 9 p.m. during the summer.

Photos by Howard Owens.

After a couple of years' absence, the result of COVID-19 disruptions, the Batavia Concert Band's Cadets Band returned to a concert band's Centennial Park performance on Wednesday.

The cadets are elementary and middle school music students from Genesee and Orleans counties, directed by Lindsey Fix, a music teacher in Albion.

The cadets performed two numbers before intermission and then joined the concert band for a number later in the show.

"They're part of the concert band," said Jason Smith. "They rehearse. They practiced last night. They're a junior concert band, so to speak."

The cadets will join the Batavia Concert Band for a concert in the park again later this summer.

Through the summer months, the Batavia Concert Band performs each Wednesday evening, starting at 7 p.m. in Centennial Park.

Photos by Howard Owens.