Come celebrate summer, at the Axelrod Performing Arts Center’s first annual “Rock n Roll Summer Cocktail Party” featuring a special performance by the Bobby Bandiera Band. The event will be held on July 1st at the Axelrod Performing Arts Center, 100 Grant Avenue, Deal Park.

Things will get underway at 6:30 pm with a special cocktail reception sponsored by Stingers and 656 Ocean in the Axelrod Theater’s art gallery. Guests are invited to sip refreshing mint mojitos, sample delicious appetizers and win tickets to future shows at the Axelrod Theater. Theater doors open at 8:00 pm for a special performance of Bobby Bandiera’s “Rock and Soul Revue”.

Bandiera is a long time fixture of the Jersey Shore sound and his appearances with local legends Cats on a Smooth Surface date back to the early 1980s and clubs such as The Stone Pony, when Bruce Springsteen would jump onstage with them on Sunday nights. Bobby has played with such legends as Stevie Wonder, B.B. King, Eric Clapton and Keith Richards. Bobby regularly headlines in leading shore venues with his band, the Bob Bandiera Band, and accompanies Southside Johnny and Bon Jovi.

Tickets for the reception and performance are $40 per person and can be ordered by calling the Axelrod Box Office at 732-531-9100 ext. 142. Group Discounts are also available by calling 732-531-9100 ext. 155.

PRLog (Press Release) – Jun 18, 2009 – IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Jill Garbi, Marketing Director, 732-531-9100 ext. 130
jgarbi@jccmonmouth.org
www.axelrodartscenter.com

SHORE GROUP PAYS TRIBUTE TO ROY ORBISON

“I gotta follow that?” asked John “Southside Johnny” Lyon with a look of mock-horror on his face, as he took the stage at Red Bank’s Count Basie Theatre, Friday night.

He was exaggerating for comic effect, but still, he faced a daunting task. It was the first show by the newly formed Jersey Shore Rock and Soul Revue, and Bobby Bandiera, the Revue’s leader, had just finished singing a version of Roy Orbison’s 1961 hit “Crying” that Orbison himself would have been proud of. Audience members responded with a standing ovation, and some were still standing as Southside Johnny walked out.

The nine-member Revue, dominated by current and former members of Southside Johnny’s Asbury Jukes, plans to present a series of Basie shows paying tribute to various rock, pop and R&B legends. It decided to start with Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Orbison, in part, because he has had such a huge influence on Bandiera.

A longtime Juke as well as a solo artist, Bandiera can imitate Orbison’s operatic voice with uncanny accuracy. He handled lead vocals throughout most of Friday’s sold-out show, which featured trademark Orbison songs such as “Oh, Pretty Woman,” “Only the Lonely (Know How I Feel),” “Running Scared” and “Dream Baby (How Long Must I Dream)” as well as more obscure tunes like “Uptown,” “Workin’ For the Man” and “Candy Man.”

“I grew up listening to Roy Orbison,” said Bandiera, 51, before adding a self-deprecating joke: ” … if you could call this grown up.”

Not all the material was by Orbison, who reached the Top 40 for the first time in 1960, and died of a heart attack in 1988, at the age of 52.

Bandiera performed several self-written songs that showed the influence of Orbison’s style, including “Only in a Dream,” “Tracey Marie” and “Pardon Me.” Southside Johnny, a surprise guest at this show, made his first appearance singing Bandiera’s “(We’ll Make This) World Stand Still,” which has a strong Orbison flavor. Then he returned to sing and play harmonica on the portion of the show that seemed to have the least to do with Orbison: the encore, a medley of Bandiera’s upbeat rock song “C’mon Caroline” and the Sam Cooke classic, “Twistin’ the Night Away.”

The Traveling Wilburys — the supergroup Orbison formed with Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne just months before his death — were represented by “Not Alone Any More” (sung by guitarist Bob Burger) and “Handle With Care” (a duet featuring Bandiera on Orbison’s lines, and Burger on the other parts).

Keyboardist Mick Seeley sang a version of Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road,” since the song was influenced by Orbison, and contains the line, “Roy Orbison singing for the lonely/Hey that’s me, and I want you only.”

The versatile band — also featuring keyboardist Kevin Kavanaugh, drummer Joe Bellia, bassist Steve Shewchuk, saxophonist Joey Stann and backing vocalists Lisa Lowell and Maureen McCrink — proved adept at the slow-building melodrama of “Blue Bayou” (with McCrink on lead vocals) and “It’s Over,” but also showed it could pull off the lean-and-mean rockabilly of “Ooby Dooby” (sung by Lowell) and “Mean Woman Blues.”

While all the musicians were competent in their lead vocal slots, the show only became magical when Bandiera was singing. When it comes to evoking Orbison’s spirit, you really have to hear Bandiera to believe him.

Plans call for the Revue to present tribute concerts at the Basie about three times a year. Possible tributees include Elvis Preseley and Frank Sinatra.

Between songs, Bandiera announced that the Revue’s next show will be on Aug. 6. Tickets are not yet available, and the subject of the tribute has not been determined.

Copyright 2005 NJ.com. All Rights Reserved.

Lots of rock vocalists admire Roy Orbison, but few try to imitate him. It’s just too daunting a task. One of the exceptions is Bobby Bandiera, who has often covered Orbison’s soaring, almost operatic songs, and written tunes with a strong Orbison flavor.

Bandiera, a longtime member of Southside Johnny’s Asbury Jukes who also leads his own Bobby Bandiera Band, will front the newly formed Jersey Shore Rock & Soul Revue in a sold-out Orbison tribute concert, tomorrow night at Red Bank’s Count Basie Theatre. Plans call for this new group, dominated by current and former Jukes, to continue to present occasional tribute concerts at the Basie in the future. Potential subjects include Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and The Everly Brothers.

Count Basie Theatre CEO Numa Saisselin came up with the idea for the project, but Bandiera suggested starting with Orbison.

“He’s been close to my heart my whole life,” says the 51-year-old singer-songwriter-guitarist, who grew up in Orange and now lives in Brick Town. “I used to listen to his records growing up — my mother used to have his records on the stereo all the time.”

Joining him in the newly formed band are guitarist Bob Burger, keyboardists Mick Seeley and Kevin Kavanaugh, drummer Joe Bellia, bassist Steve Shewchuk, and backing vocalists Lisa Lowell and Maureen McCrink. Bandiera will handle most of the lead vocals tomorrow, though Lowell, McCrink and various band members will also be featured occasionally.

The show will be dominated by Orbison’s hits (“Oh, Pretty Woman,” “Crying,” “Only the Lonely,” “Blue Bayou”), but also have room for more obscure material and a few of Bandiera’s Orbison-style originals.

Is a Southside Johnny guest appearance possible? “I will certainly invite him to come by, though I don’t know that there’s anything he’d like to sing as far as a Roy Orbison song goes,” says Bandiera.

How about Bruce Springsteen, or Jon Bon Jovi? Bandiera worked with Springsteen as recently as December, when his band backed the Boss at two charity shows at Harry’s Roadhouse in Asbury Park. He also appeared on Bon Jovi’s 1997 solo album, “Destination Anywhere.”

“All my local friends — Bruce and Jon and Gary U.S. Bonds and Southside — they’re all more than welcome, and even if they show up on the spur of the moment and want to sing something, that’s fine with me,” says Bandiera. “But we don’t have plans to work with any of those guys that night.”

Bandiera has performed at the Basie theater many times — mostly, but not always, with the Jukes. In January 1998, he led the house band at an all-star (Springsteen, Bon Jovi, etc.) concert there that raised money for the family of Patrick King, a Long Branch police sergeant who had been murdered. In April 2003, the theater was the site for “The Hope Concert,” benefiting Bandiera’s son, Robert Bandiera Jr., who has struggled with neurological problems for many years.

Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Bonds, Southside and The Max Weinberg 7 all performed. At the end of the show, Springsteen said they were there because “Bobby has saved all of our asses so many times over the years.”

Saisselin, who became the Basie theater’s CEO in January 2002, says he first met Bandiera about two years ago.

“I just instantly liked him,” says Saisselin. “I thought, ‘We need to do something together. I don’t know what it is, but we need to do something.’ About a year and a half later, I had this idea … because nostalgia is so big these days, I thought, ‘There’s got to be a way to pay tribute to people kind of classily — the way it should be done.’ And I kind of hit on this idea of Bobby as musical director.”

The fact that the show sold out, and therefore will be profitable, makes Saisselin breathe a little easier.

“I would have been thrilled if we broke even,” he says. “Frequently, the first time you do anything new, it’s rocky, and then you have to look and say, ‘Did this flop because it was a bad idea, or because we didn’t quite figure it out yet?’ It’s rare that you hit a home run out of the gate.”

Saisselin says if the project continues to be successful, it could even travel elsewhere. “We’ve got a bunch of other venues coming to take a look at it,” he says, “because in the back of my head, I always had this idea: If we can make it fly here, we could send it out on the road for a week.”

But for Bandiera, who has traveled all over the world with the Jukes for 20 years, one of the best things about the gig is that he’ll be able to sleep in his own bed.

“It’s a night in my own backyard,” he says. “I feel very comfortable about the whole thing. You couldn’t ask for a better situation.”

Copyright 2005 NJ.com. All Rights Reserved