George Stryker and the Bandits on Kelly’s 50th

Last August 6th, Karen and I went with Kelly to Malone’s Restaurant on Kelly’s 50th birthday. George Stryker and the Bandits were playing and Kelly knows them very well. She actually knows the manager very well also, and we ended up getting seated at the table next to the stage. When we arrived, that was one of only a few tables available and I have been eyeing it as we walked by to the last table, out of sight of the band. Kelly was looking at the table unhappily, but was politely saying “I guess it’s ok” when a moment later the owner popped over and waved us to the front. Awesome …

But let’s back this up a moment … we were walking in near sunset, with the sun low in the sky. Dow’s lake is always beautiful around this time of the evening. I caught some boats of various sizes at dock that were shining in the golden light …

 

The Bandits are a 3 piece band backing George up … George seems to play lead guitar and has a woman on bass, a young fellow on what seemed to be acoustic rhythm guitar most of the evening, and a guy on drums. The band sounded great … very tight. George’s vocals are very Elvis-like, which I happen to really like. The venue was dark, as are many informal concert venues. I shot images and filmed quite a bit of it with the F80EXR, and it did a decent job. This was the kind of light that screamed for a dSLR and I could easily have gotten away with it. I still regret not bringing the D700. Duh.

Here is how it looked before the band came in. The lights are on here, but they were off while the band played.

And a rendering for those who like black and white …

Kelly’s friends, Rebecca and Andy joined us. I believe that this was also a special occasion for them but I will have to check on that and update this later. Here’s Kelly enjoying some talk time with them.

 

Karen and I sat on the other side of the table with our backs to the band. We spent the evening with our chairs turned around of course :-)

Some of the earlier images seemed to have a bit more light, so turned out adequately in color. The band get’s ready here …

They opened with a nice version of Apache. They followed that with an Elvis tune – Too Much. Here is the F80’s rendering of it from YouTube. I must say that the sound is pretty decent … this venue has somewhat muffled sound, and the F80 did as well as coule be expected. It also maintained focus all evening with no problem. I only have one part mastered and posted, so the rest will be added later … as (if) time permits.

George giving the thumbs up to someone in the audience … can’t remember what this was about, but there was a lot of audience interaction.

George singing later on …

The girl on bass …

And finally, George at full zoom … not bad considering that it was really dark …

A nice evening with good music and a fun birthday party. There was a wedding party in the house and later on a young fellow took the mic and gave a speech, following that up with a song for which George lent him a guitar (very nice gesture) and he and his sister performed I believe. All in all, very sweet …