Weekend of local rock volume 26

All right, the concert didn’t actually occur on a weekend, but who really likes working on Friday anyway?

After the apparent demise of Cowboyz Saloon in Ocean City, the (Save the…) Breast Fest had to reschedule and find a new venue. On Thursday night the event was held at the Purple Moose Saloon in Ocean City. Certainly no one was more pleased than event organizer and breast cancer survivor Michele Hogsett of the band Semiblind.

The (Save the…) Breast Fest was set to benefit the Delaware Breast Cancer Coalition, and they were ready with a number of items for sale to benefit the cause.

They also had a craftsperson there creating bracelets and lapel pins made for the event were there for the buying too.

All told, the proceeds for the event totaled almost $600, which is pretty respectable for a first-time effort. Much of it was raised through the raffling of chances to win some nice items and a 50/50 drawing netted over $200.

Passers-by on the boardwalk got the luxury of seeing the band schedule and check back for their favorites.

So you can now see in just what order the band pictures will occur. Mighty convenient, huh?

Actually, High Maintenance was solely represented by their lead singer and the guitarist she borrowed for the evening.

I didn’t take pictures of the DJs, but Skip Dixxon kept busy in more ways than filling in the time between bands. He’s also the drummer for Agent 99, the second band of the evening. Hint: you’ll see Skip and Kathy Denk, the guitarist stage right, again in this presentation.

Most of the bands were female-fronted, which would be natural for such an event. The lone exception was Woodstok Nation. But Judith Carter did sing lead on the Stevie Ray Vaughn song “Pride and Joy”, which was one of the few covers they did – as opposed to the other bands, they mainly did their own stuff.

Witches Brew set out to “take us on a trip…but we promise to bring you back.” By launching into the Jefferson Airplane classic ‘White Rabbit’ they weren’t kidding.

Michele was the hostess with the mostest, and Semiblind attracted a couple special guests on their songs.

After Semiblind wrapped up, Petting Hendrix came out with a similar hard-rock sound, but done with a somewhat different selection of songs. They leaned on more pop music but threw in two covers of Jimi Hendrix songs, “Fire” and “Purple Haze.” It’s a bit jarring when combined with songs like Nena’s “99 Red Balloons” but they made it work.

The final band of the evening was Chrome Donut, who wrapped up the show with a set based more out of the Top 40 from the 1970’s and early 1980’s. Some songs were done as three-part as the picture shows while a couple songs were just keyboard, drums, and vocals. It made for a more mellow wrapup to the festivities.

Michele hopes to make this an annual event, and perhaps it will do better if they can find a venue to play on their original intended date leading into Delmarva Bike Week. Given the growing number of female-fronted bands gaining prominence this could be a much larger show for the second annual effort next year. I look forward to it!