Columbus native and guitarist Peter Olson figured it would have been a wonderful, picture-perfect, full-circle moment.
He so wanted he and his six bandmates in Yacht Rock Revue to take the stage at Mill Race Park for the annual Our Hospice of South Central Indiana concert, and remind an audience of thousands that he and band leader and Columbus native Nick Niespodziani last played Mill Race as teens — in their band called Stalefish during the summer of 1996, opening for the nationally touring Freddy Jones Band.
“It was probably the biggest performance of our lives back then,” Olson said, reminiscing while speaking by phone from his home from Atlanta, where the current, nationally relevant ensemble — just featured in The New York Times and Rolling Stone before that — is based.
The 42-year-old Olson, married to sometimes-backup singer and Columbus native Alyssa Finke Olson, will be alongside Niespodziani for the hospice concert at 7 p.m. Sept. 5. However, because of the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, they’ll be performing yacht rock 1970s and ‘80s staples, and a few originals, from Atlanta in a virtual show livestreamed on the Our Hospice Facebook page.
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“There’s still interaction with the audience,” Niespodziani said of such shows. “You just don’t feel it exactly the same way. But you can see all the hearts popping up (in posts).”
Olson holds much the same view.
“We’ve already established that vibe of the live, online performance,” Olson said, alluding to nearly all band members, including he and his wife, doing weekly Facebook Live performances from home since spring. “And there’s still a connection there. It feeds a different craving, but it can be slightly weird when you’re finishing a song in your living room and there’s complete silence.
“Then, you’ve got to pick up your phone and see how people are reacting.”
The band, known to many as The Greatest Show on Surf, which was launched as a bit of a joke, needed none of that help when it performed a rare, in-person set before 1,000-plus cheering fans in July at the outdoor and drive-in-style Ruoff Music Center parking lot in Noblesville.
“It’s difficult to temper your reaction (to a crowd) in these times,” Olson said. “The excitement of a live performance also comes with anxiety (about health safety).”
Clearly, the pandemic is concerning for a father with kids aged 4, 7, and 9. So Olson understands why the group’s national tour, in support of its first original disc, “Hot Dads in Tight Jeans,” was abruptly cut short only one-fourth of the way through amid the COVID outbreak in March — right after a string of major city sellouts and the beginning of plans for national radio airplay for “Bad Tequila,” its second single.
From there, the guys in the aviator shades and oversized collars headed home, with no idea when they might play another live show or what would become of their growing pop visibility.
“It seems like almost everything right now is kind of blowing in the wind,” Olson said.
Yet, the band’s frenzied following seems firm.
A glitzy, professionally produced YouTube video from an October performance in Atlanta captures the group’s connection with the smooth rock fans as well as anything online. Even before the band opens with a dead-on version of Hall and Oates’ “She’s Gone,” the partially captain-hatted crowd, including those of varying ages, works itself into a considerable state of noise and enthusiasm.
Olson chuckled about singing tunes that hit the charts before he was even born. Well, some of them anyway.
“I can remember as a little kid riding around Columbus in the back seat of our station wagon listening to Hall and Oates’ (newer songs),” he said.
Besides that duo, Olson promises that the band will include show tunes from The Doobie Brothers, Toto, Robbie Dupree, Steely Dan, Boz Skaggs and others in what is expected to be a 90-minute set for the hospice concert. They’re expected to be in their trademark, multicolored, vintage, leisure-suit shirts…and, of course, their truth-in-advertising tight jeans.
In a way, Olson’s glad that giant national promoter Live Nation found Yacht Rock Revue and put them on the national stage at this point in their careers rather than years ago with a band called Y-O-U.
“I would say that we’re more grateful for it now, with a better perspective,” Olson said. “We’ve been able to mold careers that fit our lives as dads and husbands.”
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What: 34th Annual Our Hospice of South Central Indiana Labor Day Weekend Concert featuring the nationally touring band Yacht Rock Revue, with Columbus members and Columbus East High School grads Peter Olson and Nick Niespodziani, along with sometimes-backup singer Alyssa Finke Olson.
When: 7 p.m. Sept. 5.
Where: Livestreamed on the Our Hospice of South Central Indiana Facebook page.
To help the cause of hospice: Viewers can donate at crh.org/hospice-donate
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