We were excited to be the headlining act at Spookapella XI, The Center for Arts in Natick’s annual halloween a cappella show. Our good friend Joe stepped in to fill Oren’s spot for this performance, since Oren was away on vacation.
It’s a tradition for groups who are performing to dress up in costume for Spookapella, so we searched high and low, far and wide for the best 80s outfits we could find. I think you’ll agree that we chose wisely.
Yesterday, we started a Revolution. We kicked off a Revolution season. We sang the National Anthem that kicked off the home opener for the New England Revolution‘s season. Aside from our National Anthem, we also sang O, Canada. After singing, we were able to hang out and watch the Revolution kick off their season. Good luck, Revs!
We recently had the pleasure of singing in Marblehead, MA at me&thee coffeehouse. Unfortunately, our boy Paul was not able to join us on stage that night for personal reasons. In his stead, we had two amazing musicians/performers join us, Gary Gustavsen (a guy who has subbed for the band so often, we gave him the official title of 22nd member of Shadow) and Eric Morrissey of the well known Boston group “Overboard.” They had three days to learn eight songs each and they both pulled it off with flying colors.
The video below was taken during Eric’s set (he’s the guy on the far right). It’s an arrangement we love performing and a song that sounds so great in Judd’s voice. We’re very proud of this performance and we hope you take the time to listen all the way to the end.
Enjoy!
-Caleb
Boston’s very own Dan Lennon will be taking a year off from FOCS as he and his family travel to California in support of an amazing job opportunity for his wife. While Dan’s away, our very good friend Gary will be filling his spot.
Join us in wishing Dan a safe and happy time in CA. Have fun, Dan!
Ok. Now, join us in hoping that Dan doesn’t have too much fun out there so that he comes back. Have just enough fun, Dan!
We’ve just added a new performance date. The show will be Thursday, November 21st 2013 at Somerville High School in New Jersey. We are honored to have been asked to be the featured performers for a concert in memory of Jenna Magliulo. Jenna passed away on October 11th 2013. This was posted by Karen Gorzinski, our good friend and Jenna’s chorus teacher:
“The SHS Music Department is having a benefit concert to celebrate the life of Jenna Magliulo, Class of 2012. Jenna was a talented, fun-loving, kind, positive blessing to all who had the privilege of knowing her. Two weeks ago, Jenna lost her battle with an aggressive, cancerous brain tumor and we are all heart broken. The pop-rock vocal band “Five O’Clock Shadow” is coming down from Boston to rock the house and spend the evening doing what Jenna loved most – SINGING! Please join us on Thursday, Nov. 21 at 7:00pm in the Somerville HS Auditorium to celebrate this beautiful young woman. Tickets are $10.00 for all general admission seats. Checks for tickets and donations can be made out to SHS Music. Call 908-218-4108 for tickets. We are looking for sponsors to cover the cost of the group and are in need of hotel rooms and dinner for the FOCS. If you can assist with getting any of these items donated please message me. If we cover all the overhead costs, we can give all of the ticket and refreshment sale monies directly to the Magliulo family. Alums…now is the time to step up for a fellow choir member. In her senior year Jenna sang in all three curricular choirs and Chamber Choir. The music department was her home. Thank you for your help and support.”
Whether you knew Jenna or not, we encourage you to come out and celebrate her life with us.
See you there…
FOCS
We are excited to announce that we’ve been chosen to sing the National Anthem at the Patriot’s game this Sunday, October 27th! I’m sure it’s difficult to get tickets this late in the game, but if you happen to be going, make sure you get there early enough to hear us. If you’re wondering if they’ll broadcast it on TV, we are almost positive they won’t. It is in our experience that the only time they broadcast the anthem is for playoff games or for the Super Bowl. We’ll ask for a copy of the video feed to post here on our website for you to see.
In other news, I (Caleb) am not very good at keeping up with the news feed. We had a great time performing in Concord, NH at the Capitol Center for the Arts for the Voices of the 603 festival. Big thanks to Jamie Saucier for putting the whole thing together and inviting us this year. If you haven’t been a part of the festival and you are either a student or teacher from NH interested in a cappella, you really need to look into being a part of the festival.
We’ve finally rid the stage of our effects units. It’s been about a decade since we were hands free on the stage and it feels great to be able to get rid of the distraction and really connect with the audience. I think we all agree that our show is only going to grow from here.
We have several gigs on the calendar. If you happen to be in New Jersey on November 21st, we are in the final stages of confirming a new gig at Somerville High School. More details to come soon. Boston locals, please come out to Westford, MA (it’s not that far!) to see us perform at the Parish Center for the Arts on November 23rd. All of the necessary details are on our gigs page.
Check back soon. We’re starting to really work on our web presence and I imagine there will be quite a bit of media (videos, audio) coming at you soon!
Five O’Clock Shadow
It’s hard to believe summer is more than half over. It’s been a busy year for us so far. We just finished up our show at Firehouse Center for the Performing Arts. A huge thank you to all of our fans who came out to see us perform in what (we think) was our final show for the summer.
We’re going to be spending the next few months altering our show just a bit. We’ve decided to eliminate the effects units from stage and go back to having our effects triggered “mysteriously.” For those of us who have watched our performances for the past few decades, you will remember that there was a time when there was no gear on stage and the illusion of the effects was a staple of our performance. This is extremely exciting for us because while having gear on stage can be somewhat enjoyable (what can we say? we’re gearheads), it is also distracting to both you as our audience and to us as performers. We’d like to be able to focus just a bit more on movement on stage and not have to always avoid obstacles (we almost lost Oren at one point…whew).
We’ve added a few more gigs to the website. We’re hoping that by our October 11th gig, we will have both new music, and a new way of performing ready to debut! In the meantime, keep checking back for updates on our progress as well as new videos from past performances.
Rock on,
FOCS
Summer is flying fast! We just added a gig at Firehouse Center for the Performing Arts in Newburyport, MA on July 27th. It will be our final gig of the summer. We performed there just a few years ago and the show not only sold out, but we had to turn many away at the door. Make sure to get your tickets soon!
We are working hard writing and learning new songs for the fall…both covers and originals. One of the covers we are working on is perhaps one of the most famous rock songs of all time. Hint: It’s popularity was reborn to a younger generation in a famous teen flick from the 90’s.
Please keep checking our gigs page. We keep adding more and more every day. Thanks to all of our fans for their support. We’ll see you at the next one!
We are honored to be asked to perform at a benefit concert for Christopher Molnar, a 19-year-old student of South Brunswick High School in Monmouth Junction, NJ. Chris is recovering from a recent heart transplant and needs all of our support. Please come join us on May 29, 2013 at 7:00pm and show your support for Chris!
For more information, please go to our gigs page.
It is official…Five O’Clock Shadow is now 22 years old. To celebrate, we’d like to give you all the opportunity to listen to our brand new EP “Six” for free! Visit the Albums page and click on the picture of the album.
Also, we’d also like to announce our official CD release party. We released it at BOSS, but now we’re throwing a party ourselves. Please tell your friends and family…Center for Arts at the Armory in Somerville, MA on Friday, June 21st at 8pm. Please visit our Gigs page for more information. Tickets will be available to the public soon.