CFTC-A Benefit for The Boys & Girls Club

Concert For The Cause

By Lydia Lowe

     Rain threatened the event in the morning but after lunch the rain ended and Concert For The Cause got off to an exciting start with guitar stars on Saturday night.

     Two members of Dominus X, Burgess Martin and Josh Keeling, opened the show.  Martin has been perfecting a new method for playing the guitar called “the tap method”.  He first introduced this at day one of a two day show for Sterling Autism that was held near the first of the year at Hutch Vapor.  He’s obviously been putting in a lot of practice on this method and what a great way to open the show.  He was backed up on guitar by Keeling which added to the overall effect.  At one point, Martin played the guitar and the bass simultaneously.  When he announced at the beginning of the night that he was going to do this the crowd was not quite sure whether to believe it or not.  Then he actually did that very thing.  It was truly amazing.  And what a crowd these two drew.  Last week the new and improved Dominus X played and word must have gotten around because Martin and Keeling played to a rather large crowd to start out the night.

      Next up was Josh Lightsey AKA J* Wheelz.  Lightsey did some guitar work at the beginning of his set.  But Lightsey is primarily a rapper and before too long he was joined on stage by Keyboy and Rocket Man.  They did several raps together as a group and then various combinations of one, two or all three together.   Their styles were just a bit different than most rappers and the crowd was intrigued with their music.  The Boys and Girls Club was the featured non-profit for the evening and I found out that these three young men had been a part of that organization when they were younger.

     The final act for the evening was Kevin Seig.  Seig played guitar and seemed to be fairly competent on this instrument.  Unfortunately, instead of seeing this opportunity for what it’s intended to be which is food, music and fun in the park on a Saturday night with the family, Seig used it as a platform for his views about the military.  He mentioned several times that folks shouldn’t join the army.  This came across to the crowd as an attack on veterans.  The crowd began to dwindle until there were very few left in the park to listen.  

     The few hardy souls that hung in there got an unexpected treat as the night wrapped up with some acoustic guitar by Sean Story of VOS, who helped run the sound for the evening, as well as a one last rap by J* Wheelz, Keyboy, and Rocket Man that got those left in the park up on their feet to jump around.

     Next week is our 4^th of July show on July 5^th.  Come over to Avenue A Park and check out this line-up: VOS-Victims of Spotlight will be there as well as Fraktured Black and Godzillionare.  The featured non-profit will be The Salvation Army, and remember that the sales of the food and drink always goes directly to the non-profit that is featured each and every Saturday evening throughout the summer.

CFTC-A Two-Day Event Benefiting Three Organizations

Concert For The Cause

A Two-Day Music Festival:

An Official Smallville Event

By Lydia Lowe 

 

     The Wandering Madman returned Saturday night to play in Downtown Hutchinson.  Perhaps you saw him when he played Third Thursday, last year.  But if you were like me and missed that show, Saturday night was another chance to check him out.

     A crowd began to form at about 6:00 pm in anticipation of another CFTC show.  The Hutchinson Street Cat Society was the featured non-profit and they had the hotdogs and hamburgers already on the grill.  It was a hot, humid night and liquids were big sellers.  There were also cupcakes from Serendipity Cupcakes and homemade cookies which a couple of young female volunteers sold as they walked through the crowd.  To top off the food for the evening a four-tiered marble cake, decorated to commemorate the Smallville Festival, was donated and at the end of the evening everyone was treated to cake.  

     Fro, The Wandering Madman, began the show promptly at 7:00 pm and he played a variety of songs all the while asking the crowd which they prefered one group/song over another and crowd reaction decided what group and which song he'd play/sing.  He also did something he called "looping" where he played every instrument for every song and gave it his own twist.  Unfortunately, on a song or two his computer didn't cooperate.  Eventually he turned the overhead screen off and sang the songs using his looping technique that he hadn't been able to do earlier.  We all enjoyed the extra effort and hearing the songs he had previewed earlier when the computer had some issues.  Fro even managed to play a portion of the Superman theme song on the Kazoo.  

 

     All in all it was an excellent way to spend a Saturday evening with food, drink, fun, and music with friends.  Over $400 was raised for the Hutchinson Street Cat Society.

 

     CFTC partnered with The Smallville Festival to become an official event.  On Friday, there was an all day music festival in Avenue A Park that started at 2:00 pm and the music continued until after midnight.  Downtown Hutchinson was the featured non-profit in the afternoon and The Boys and Girls Club was the featured non-profit in the evening.

     The line-up Friday featured: Burgess Martin, Kaleaha B., Keyboy, Earth to Matilda, Felicia, Dominus X, Nick McKuen and the 33, The Joy Coffs, and Without Sacrifice. 

     Don't forget that Concerts For The Cause will return this Saturday night in Avenue A Park for another concert.  Check out the website and the Facebook page for more information.  Our featured non-profit will be The Boys and Girls Club. 

Check out Lydia's ReVue blog at: http://lydia-lowe.blogspot.com/

    

CFTC-A Benefit for Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Center

 

Concert For The Cause

An All Day Music Festival:

The Rusty Needle

By Lydia Lowe

Concert For The Cause kicked off a preview to its summer season on Saturday, May 31 with a school’s out all day music festival at The Rusty Needle.  The concert benefited the Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Center of Hutchinson.  

Held under a big tent on the parking lot of The Rusty Needle, the afternoon session was a family friendly all ages show which featured: Fraktured Black, Hutchinson’s own-Earth to Matilda, Staynlis and The Brian Davis Band which rounded out the afternoon’s entertainment.  

 

Beginning at 2:00 p.m., Fraktured Black opened the show and half way through their set they did their version of a Kurt Cobain hit, Heart Shaped Box, which was superb.  Earth To Matilda brought their fan base with them and played a couple of original tunes that I loved.   Front man Conner Eaves sang the song Love is Like a Slasher Film, which he wrote with a friend of his and the band previewed a new song that the band had written together with their newest band mate entitled 127.  Staynlis sang a couple of songs from their newest CD, which I thought were outstanding, the tracks were Alive and Pieces.  The Brian Davis Band rounded out the afternoon session with a couple of new experimental tracks that haven’t made it to CD yet, Overcome and Imagine.  I can’t wait until they get those tracks recorded.  The new CD is going to be incredible.  Each band played a 45 minute set and it was hard to believe that it was 5:00 p.m. and the afternoon’s entertainment had come to an end.

  

After a 45 minute break to change out for the evening’s adult entertainment, the festival started up again with a different set of musical groups.  The evening began with Perpetual Fist, then transitioned into Apathy Syndrome from Des Moines, Iowa; Hutchinson’s own Victims of Spotlight (VOS), Reign in Peril, and rounding out the evening was Hemlock from Las Vegas, Nevada.

At 6:00 p.m. the music took on an edgier turn with Perpetual Fist, who half way through their set did a cover of Bad Girlfriend and they gave it their own spin.  Apathy Syndrome had to be one of the most unusual bands to ever play Hutchinson.  They made a six hour drive to get to the festival and brought their fans on a bus with them.  They had costumes and put on an unusual show for the audience.  Check out the CFTC website for photos of the band.  Just seeing this group alone was worth the price of admission.  Victims of Spotlight AKA VOS) is one of my favorites and I couldn’t wait until they took the stage.  These guys have such a stage presence and the last two shows that I’ve seen them at they’ve done their version of Twilight Zone and had the entire audience on their feet.  Reign in Peril played their final show as a group and it was bittersweet.  The crowd couldn’t get enough and even asked for an encore.  Hemlock rounded out the evening and the crowd energy went up 110%.  Everyone was on their feet and dancing to the beat.  There is a rumor that Hemlock will be back during the state fair and will play The Rusty Needle again.

 

All in all it was a great day for an outdoor festival and the live music was incredible.  Crowd goers could be heard after the show exclaiming that this was one of the best shows that they’d been to in a long time.  Many of these bands will be playing Concert For The Cause during the summer season, so check out the website for more information and to see photos of Saturday’s event.