February was definitely an interesting month. Lots of seemingly sub-arctic weather didn’t do anyone’s heating bills any good, but it was still a pretty good month for music even after the snow cancelled a whole bunch of shows.
Our first trip out was a last minute one at the West Shore Theater in New Cumberland. This place is so cool, and a beautiful place to see live music; I highly recommend it if you get the opportunity. This particular evening, we got to see Wheel’s On Fire – A musical tribute to The Band for their sold out show. Martin Gangl started the evening off with a few solo acoustic classic rock and blues tunes while folks filtered in and got their seats to warm things up. Now, I’ve been familiar with a number of songs from The Band like Cripple Creek, The Shape I’m In, and Atlantic City; but I didn’t realize how large and varied their music library really was until this show. A lot of times Wendy & I would look at each other as a new song started and be like “oh yeah, we know this one…didn’t know this was who did it though!”. A nice bonus to the evening was when they brought up some special guest artists like Nate Myers, Pete Netznik and Mike Banks to join in on a few of the songs. At times, there were up to twelve musicians on stage at once. This is a pretty good sized stage, but it was full and made for a great sound for the evening.
The following weekend, Wendy and I headed down to the Stoner Grille in Lancaster. We both had the fish tacos and the crab & corn chowder, and they were simply amazing. If the rest of the grub on their menu is even close to as good as this dinner was, we’ll definitely be going back in the future. With perfect timing, just as we were getting our drinks, my buddies in Get Petty took to the stage. Greg and the guys had talked up their game pretty good while we were doing a promo shoot for their upcoming shows a few months ago and we decided to find out if they lived up to the talk. Spoiler alert – it definitely did! The amount of talent on stage between all five of these guys was impressive (I’d already seen a few of them before in other projects so I suppose I shouldn’t really have been surprised LOL) and they did a great job of bringing Tom Petty’s music to life for the packed house. Songs like Refugee, Won’t Back Down, You Wreck Me, and a slew of others brought back some really great memories growing up on Petty’s music over the years.
Next up was Valentine’s Day, so Wendy and I headed up to Duncannon to hit the Doyle Hotel for a few reasons: We knew the food would be great (it was), we hadn’t been there in too long, and Stephen Robert (of Hank The Buffalo fame) was doing a special “Be My Valentine” solo acoustic show which sounded perfect. The room was pretty much packed for the same reasons while Stephen cooked up his own versions of songs like Cover Me Up, Simple Man, Can’t You See and others including a few originals like “5am” and “Citywide” which I can only describe as a great drinking song. We even had a guest appearance from Nick Turk who played a few songs like Riptide while Stephen took a short break which was very cool Nick also hosts an open mic there at the Doyle every other Tuesday.
My last trip out for the month (actually had one or two more planned but they got cancelled due to the most recent snow storm) was over to the Capital City Music Hall in Harrisburg. Innavibe (Dave Gates on vocals, Dylan Zepp of Ruiness on drums, etc) opened up the show with a soulful set of six originals and two covers with awesome reggae vibes. Being still a relatively new band, the crowd (which had the basement stage area damn near full!) there was largely there for the headliner…but as the set went on, it was clear that they were quickly turning in to Innavibe fans which was awesome to see. I also want to add this: I’ve watched Dave for a long time now as a solo acoustic performer who always did a great job of entertaining any crowd in front of him…but this night cemented the fact in my mind that THIS was what he is meant to do musically. All the growth over the last few years had led to this very moment, and all the future ones that he will have leading this band, and I can’t wait to see where they go from here. Headlining the evening was Atlantic City based reggae band SensaMotion who are currently touring for the next couple months supporting their 2025 album release Feel It All Around. I wasn’t familiar with them going in to their set but they had a very low-key and chill sort of vibe with extremely talented musicians that had the crowd singing and swaying along to every song the entire time. They’ve got a few albums and singles on all streaming platforms and are definitely worth giving a listen.
So there it is, my month of music through my eyes and ears. I want to once again thank all the bands, venues, and everyone else involved in our incredible local music scene for everything they do. Just a reminder: if you’ve got a show coming up that I should see; make sure to send me an invite, shoot me an email or a message, let me know about it. Venues: please don’t hesitate to reach out to me as well. The majority of the shows that I go and shoot I find out about through invites from all of you or your friends. Hit me up on facebook: @chrisriderphotography or email: chrisriderphotography@gmail.com, stop me if you see me out and say hi. Until next month…go find some live music and give them and the venue your support, they truly need it more now than they ever did.
