Columbus natives Nick Niespodziani and Peter Olson and their bandmates with the nationally touring Yacht Rock Revue enjoyed ample screen time at last year’s virtual Our Hospice of South Central Indiana concert, streamed from their group’s base in Atlanta, Georgia.
This year, you might say they’re hoping for some scream time when the free, annual Labor Day weekend event unfolds in person in front of expected thousands at Mill Race Park in downtown Columbus. Longtime local favorites 40 Years of College will open the show at 6:30 p.m., as the group has done a number of times through the years.
“The electric vibes that pass back and forth between Yacht Rock Revue and the crowd are going to feel like waves of joy and relief and nostalgia all wrapped up in one tidal wave of emotion this Labor Day weekend,” lead singer Niespodziani said. “Sharing this experience with our friends and family and ex-girlfriends and even the kids who wanted to beat us up at Central Junior High in Columbus will make for a once-in-a-lifetime prodigal-sons-return kind of experience.”
Yacht Rock Revue’s cover versions of 1970s and 1980s pop-rock from Hall and Oates to The Doobie Bothers to Robbie Dupre unconventionally put the group on the national map in the past couple years. And just before March 2020, when the global pandemic shut down concert tours, the group was selling out 6,000-seat venues across the country.
“We really had some momentum going,” said Niespodziani, a 1996 Columbus East High School graduate, during an interview last year.
That included radio programmers nationwide making plans to put into airplay rotation the band’s original single “Bad Tequila” from its debut release “Hot Dads in Tight Jeans.” Its first harmonies-heavy original single, “Step,” included a video directed by sister Gina Niespodziani, now in Brooklyn. And that momentum also included two stories in Rolling Stone magazine.
Niespodziani and Olson met in the fourth grade in Columbus, went on to Indiana University in the late ‘90s, and formed the band Y-O-U before launching Yacht Rock Revue. They mentioned last year that one of their dreams ever since a high school band contest at Mill Race Park years ago was to return to the venue as Our Hospice headliners one day.
Locally, the free concert highlights the non profit’s work with palliative and end-of-life care, and raises money for that cause via sales of food, souvenirs, raffle tickets and more. Last year’s concert raised a far-and-away record $157,000.
Organizers say that safety will be uppermost. Hospice leaders say they will follow Bartholomew County COVID Task Force and Centers For Disease Control guidelines set forth at the time of the concert. They also say the concert will be more “condensed,” with details coming later.
Dr. Brian Niedbalski, Bartholomew County health officer, included a statement for the media in Our Hospice’s concert promotional material.
“It is exciting to bring back this long-standing tradition to Columbus,” Niedbalski said, “and we ask that everyone attending comply with the guidelines and recommendations so we can all enjoy this annual event.”
Hospice president Laura Leonard mentioned that last year’s separate and popular drive-through homemade cookie and raffle ticket sale days before the concert will return this year. The same is planned for the American Legion Post No. 24 fish fry.
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”How you can help now” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
Our Hospice of South Central Indiana is currently soliciting sponsors, contributors and benefactors and also those interested in purchasing raffle tickets. If you are interested in sponsorship, please contact Julie Davis at (812) 371-7973 or [email protected] or make a donation “In Memory Of” or “In Honor Of” a friend, family member, or in appreciation of our staff members at crh.org/hospiceconcert
To purchase $10 raffle tickets for a chance to win $10,000, please contact Tabitha Saltzman at (812) 662-3194 or [email protected], or purchase online at crh.org/hospiceraffle, direct debit only.
[sc:pullout-text-end]
