The shoes. It had to be the shoes.
Singer and Columbus North High School student Ben Dickerson acknowledged it. And how on earth could it be otherwise when you are crooning Elvis Presley’s classic “Blue Suede Shoes” wearing — what else? — precisely those crazy kicks?
“As soon as I found them recently (at a local store), I had more confidence in the song,” Dickerson said, just after he had swiveled and shook his way into the hearts of more than 900 screaming fans at the 33rd Annual American Pie rock concert and history hybrid Friday evening, thank you very much.
The gathering at North’s Judson Erne Auditorium fell about 100 seats short of a sellout, similar to last year. But students and community members who comprised the 31-song, three-hour show clearly were sold on the cause and the theme “Changes: 1955 to 1975.”
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“Think about the idea of change, not only during this brief period in history — 1955-75 — but as it relates to today,” said show founder and narrator Ed Niespodziani in his introduction. “And then keep in mind that the only thing permanent, back then and now, in this world is change.”
Niespodziani, whose Polish surname means “the unexpected,” launched American Pie in 1985 in his classroom as a way to interest his Columbus North social studies students in history and social consciousness.
Soon enough, the student-performer concept boogied its way into what is today in the newly refurbished 1,021-seat auditorium and attracted a full, tight, professional band that includes guitarist son Nick Niespodziani, and then an orchestra complete with a huge, sassy brass section.
And the proceedings unfold in front of three hugely oversized, vertical banners depicting eclectic elements of the eras, from Elvis to an artist with different moves — disco duck John Travolta in that iconic “Saturday Night Fever” pose. Older audience members seem to sweetly embrace the days of their youth.
“Oh — we know all these songs,” said Candy Watson, who said she has seen nearly every show through the years. “That’s what brings us back every year.”
As she spoke, vocalist and North student Joe Robinson sang The Youngbloods’ 1967 lovefest anthem, “Get Together,” including the memorable lines, “If you hear the song I sing/You will understand (listen)/You hold the key to love and fear/All in your trembling hand.”
Today, the production that organizers get together is so polished that even the backup singers earn a big ovation. And several schools throughout the state and in other parts of the nation now copy American Pie as a rocker’s remarkable reverie through doo-wop, hippedom, disco, grunge, you name it.
At the local presentation, the surroundings normally are filled with enough Sixties’ peace signs to stop a world of wars. Friday’s event featured such. And performers such as North’s Grant Jackson, decked in an afro as 1960s and 1970s funk singer Sly Stone, also sported bell bottoms seemingly as wide as the ample stage.
Jackson, along with North singers Chailey Meadows and Sydney Guthrie, more than ably presented the 1969 smash “Everyday People.” But to watch American Pie is to see students perform with far more confidence and verve than any collection of everyday people. See proper operatic and showtune veteran Emily Sipes of North exuberantly belt Martha and the Vandellas’ “Heat Wave” with sizzling sax from North peer Alex Farrar, and you tend to forget these are teens joyously rocking their way through their parents and grandparents’ upheaval and tumult.
“I know he’s probably going to be hard on himself after the show and probably say he messed up a bunch,” said Andria Farrar, the proud mom of the sax player who triggered big shouts simply when he stepped to the mic before his musical bridge in the song.
Behind the scenes stood people such as hair stylist Tim Emmert of Studio Shag. Emmert and C4 cosmetology students from the local McDowell Education Center styled the performers’ hair to fit the artist they depicted, beginning their work a full six hours before the opening drumbeat of Bill Haley and His Comets’ “Rock Around the Clock.”
“Hair was a big part of this music — especially the Sixties and Seventies,” Emmert said while he applied enough hairspray to one female student’s coiff to defeat a hurricane. “I’m a Seventies’ child myself, and I get it. My role is to help them get more into their character.”
Which seemed to help viewers and listeners get into the tenor of the times — and step into the shoes, if you will, of those from another period. A period of changes.
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”American Pie by the numbers” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
31: Number of songs
33: Number of years for the event
100+: Number of performers, musicians and crew
900+: Attendance
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