Members of 40 Years of College are, from left, Robert Caldwell, Kevin Welsh, Mike Stiver, David Larson, Drew Robertson, and Roy Goode.
Photo provided
FAMILY physician Dr. Roy Goode can tell you what’s good for what ails you about now. In fact, he figures it will be as helpful and healthful to him as it will be to others.
And that’s the ever-popular 40 Years of College’s first concert at Brown County Playhouse since the COVID-19 pandemic altered the live music scene. The six-member group, featuring three doctors including Goode, last performed at the 422-seat venue just before the March 2020 shutdown of many facilities.
And the classic pop-rock cover band, which has played before larger crowds than probably any other local group since the 1990s, is slated to return at 7:30 p.m Saturday. It also marks the ensemble’s return to performing, period.
“I think this will be totally therapeutic for everyone, just to be able to get back together, and to resume some normality that has been missing the last two years,” said Goode, the group’s co-lead singer and lead guitarist, promising a two-hour show. “Hopefully, with everything looking like it’s improving, we can get back to some of that pre-pandemic feel.”
The setlist for the show includes Motown, the Beatles, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Pure Prairie League, Loggins and Messina, acoustic Boston, and even Art Garfunkel material. There also could be an original number from the band’s 1998 album “Long Way To New York City,” scheduled to be available at the gathering.
The group, with four original members — Goode, Dr. David Larson, Dr. Drew Robertson and Mike Stiver — who have been together since 1994, is perhaps best known for opening at least 10 of the Our Hospice of South Central Indiana Labor Day Weekend concerts before crowds estimated at 10,000 people or more at the local Mill Race Park.
In fact, some years, their followers felt the group often known as “the doctors band” (hence the name) outshined even the concert headliners, such has been their polish and especially their trademark vocal harmony. In 1997, when the rock docs announced their final tune at the huge gathering, the crowd nearest the stage groaned audibly. Attendees wanted more.
Keyboardist Larson mentioned that when the music is sweet and the audience connection is palpable, there’s no medical or musical chart to measure the euphoria.
“When things are going well and the audience really likes you when you’re performing, there’s just nothing like it,” Larson said. “It’s about the most fun thing there is in the world.”
With that in mind, maybe the band’s concert opener should be something such as “Here Comes the Fun,” though it’s actually the Beatles’ classic, “Here Comes the Sun.” Hopefully meaning that there is now light light at the end of the pandemic tunnel.
Larson mentioned that the musicians have missed playing live music as much as most have missed hearing it. And he sees the Brown County facility as a perfect place to restart their rock reminiscing.
“I think the playhouse is now my new favorite place to play,” Larson said, adding that small theaters are ideal for the band’s three-part harmony and more. “The stage is kind of in the round. And it’s kind of like you’re out there amid the audience.”
The group also is fond of the Park Theater in North Vernon, where it has attracted solid crowds for years. Locally, when The Crump was still open, the band played there, too. Members consider their time together like recreation.
“We consider our practices a boys’ night out,” Goode said.
And they consider concerts nostalgia nights of sorts.
”We hope,” Goode said, “that people who come to a show can find some good music memories that place them at a certain good time in their life when they’ve heard a particular song.”
