Used to be I was the lead singer in a rock band. A couple over the years actually. But the one I’m talking about goes by the name The White Hot. As most garage/basement bands, we practiced plenty and played out not so much. Did it for 3 or 4 years before I moved out of town – from Alexandria, Virginia to Knoxville, Tennessee.
Even after I left town, though, our fame had not yet plummeted to zero. There was somebody who came to a couple of our gigs whose daughter was going to get married. Would The White Hot be able to perform? And for free? But our one fan was a friend of some members of the band and we were happy just to get the chance to play out one last time. So we rehearsed when we could (considering I was not living in the area) and played the gig and it went well. We made a long weekend of it – flying up from Knoxville to Northern Virginia. We brought MadBee with us, but, since it was an adults only affair, a friend of the family came with us to watch her during the event itself.
Fast forward 18 months or so and I got a call from one of the guys from the band. This was in March 2019. He said remember that wedding we did? One of the attendees at the wedding has a kid getting married. He remembers how much fun they had with the band that night. Could we reform one more time to play his daughter’s wedding. In May 2020. So, I’m still out of town and I get up to Northern Virginia much less often now that MadZee is attending the University of Tennessee. It seemed like it would be difficult to get together enough to be able to make it work. But I said with 14 months, I’m willing to try if the rest of the guys are.
Which brings us to today. I’m flying up to Northern Virginia tomorrow morning. Practice Friday night and fly back Saturday morning. I don’t like to get away from the MadDoc if I can help it, but since she’s on call on Saturday and MadBee is off with her dad, this seems like the perfect time to try to get in our first practice all of us in the same room. The other guys have been working on songs by themselves. Now to try and put it all together. I’m actually pretty optimistic that we can get a good 20-25 songs run through because it’s going to be mostly the songs we did at the last wedding gig.
Oh. You’d like to know what songs we’re going to try and do? Thanks for asking. Here’s the list of possibles (* new songs for the band).
- What You Need – INXS*
- Synchronicity II – The Police
- Bad Case of Loving You – Robert Palmer
- What I Like About You – The Romantics
- Heart of Rock and Roll – Huey Lewis and the News
- Need You Tonight – INXS*
- 99 Red Balloons – Goldfinger
- Rock This Town – Stray Cats
- Lowdown – Boz Scaggs*
- Can’t Take My Eyes off of You – Muse cover of Frankie Valli tune
- Rock and Roll All Night – Kiss*
- Lido Shuffle – Boz Scaggs*
- Back in the USSR – Beatles
- I Saw Her Standing There – Beatles
- Drive My Car – Beatles
- That Thing You Do – The Wonders
- Roll With It – Steve Winwood*
- Kiss Me – New Found Glory cover of Sixpence None the Richer tune
- If You’re Wondering If I Want You To – Weezer
- Don’t Gotta Work It Out – Fitz and the Tantrums
- Last Nite – The Strokes
- Maybe I’m Amazed – Paul McCartney
- Shut Up and Dance – Walk the Moon*
- Semi Charmed Life – Third Eye Blind*
- China Grove – Doobie Brothers
- Hold On Loosely – .38 Special
- Accidentally In Love – Counting Crows*
- Hard to Handle – Black Crowes
- I Want You To Want Me – Cheap Trick
- You Get What You Give – New Radicals*
- Play That Funky Music – Wild Cherry
- Long Train Running – Doobie Brothers
- Two Princes – Spin Doctors
- Closing Time – Semisonic*
- Everybody Wants to Rule the World – Tears for Fears
- Freebird – Lynyrd Skynyrd
- Crazy On You – Heart*
- Kryptonite – 3 Doors Down
- American Girl – Tom Petty
- My Love – Paul McCartney
- Jumpin Jack Flash – Rolling Stones
- I’m a Believer – Monkees/Smashmouth/Neil Diamond
- Build Me Up Buttercup – The Foundations
- Sweet Caroline – Neil Diamond