Submitted photo Sister Hazel will headline the Our Hospice of South Central Indiana fundraising concert.
One of the youngest and more current pop-rock bands in the history of the Our Hospice of South Central Indiana Labor Day Weekend Concert will perform as the headliner Sept. 2 at Mill Race Park in downtown Columbus.
The free outdoor concert is among the city’s largest single-day events, sometimes attracting an estimated 7,000 people or more.
Sister Hazel, best known for the 1997 hit, “All For You,” will be the featured act with country music singer and Hoosier native Levi Riggs opening, organizers have announced. If the weather holds out, it will mark the first hospice benefit concert held at the park since 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic. Heavy rain canceled last year’s event that was to highlight the Columbus-flavored and nationally touring Yacht Rock Revue.
The headlining group, which formed in Gainesville, Florida, also has had its share of movie soundtrack work.
It has had music featured in “Major League: Back to the Minors,” “The Wedding Planner,” “Clay Pigeons,” “Bedazzled” and “10 Things I Hate About You.” Sister Hazel also appeared on the Fleetwood Mac tribute album, “Legacy: A Tribute to Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours” with a cover version of “Gold Dust Woman.”
Sister Hazel has been called “one of the Top 100 Most Influential Independent Performers of the last 15 years” by Performing Songwriter Magazine.
Often in the past, because of the concert’s classic rock theme, headliners have been in their 70s crooning hits from the 1970s or even before. Still, amid that environment, some artists in recent years have displayed much of their vocal magic of yesteryear.
Peter Cetera in 2016 and Dennis DeYoung in 2014 clearly have been among those, with pipes that sounded as polished live as their biggest recordings of the 1980s — and the crowd reaction to prove it.
Sister Hazel currently stands apart from other classic acts in that it maintains all five original members, according to online sources.
“This year’s summer concert of 2023 will be an epic event,” said Steph Cain in a news release.
She is president of the local, not-for-profit hospice, one of the first in the state in the early 1980s.
The concert is the organization’s largest fundraiser of the year via everything from sponsorships, raffle ticket sales, T-shirt sales, cookie sales and other items. Last year, even though it was canceled, fundraising activities still netted more than $147,000.
Currently, organizers still are soliciting for a range of concert sponsors. Title sponsors are FORVIA Faurecia and Columbus Regional Health.
Hospice will host a separate, drive-thru fundraiser Aug. 21 with baked cookies, raffle tickets, T-shirt sales the week of Aug. 21 at The Hospice Center at 2626 E. 17th St.
The local hospice’s mission revolves around a theme of Make Every Moment Count while providing end-of-life care.
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