Waiters, chefs rock out for food bank
April 27, 2009 by GRACE MORRIS
Filed under Variety
Scattered throughout downtown Athens, trophy-hungry rock stars serve food and drinks in disguise.
By day they are Rob Thomason, a waiter at The Grit, or Adam Onstott, a chef at Last Resort Grill. Tonight they will show their true colors when they take the stage at the 40 Watt as drummers for Peppered with Rubbish and Wild Cherry.
Although they follow in the footsteps of Athens music legends like Michael Stipe and Kevin Barnes, Thomason and Onstott differ from their predecessors in two key ways. They play with a lusted-after trophy in their future and absolutely no performance experience in their past.
To benefit Nuci’s Space and The Food Bank of Northeast Georgia, the 40 Watt planned a concert like no other. Bands from the local establishments Athenians know and love will battle against each other for a pitcher-shaped trophy to display in their restaurants and bars.
Athens Bar and Restaurant Battle of the Bands Benefit
When: 9 tonight
Where: 40 Watt
Price: $5, $7 under 21
“When we win, we plan to show it off on our trophy shelf,” Jeff Griggs of the Caledonia Lounge said. “Right now it displays our bowling trophies and some broken bass guitars, so we need to make room for it right in the center.”
Ten bands will compete tonight for the prize. Their competitive eligibility hinges on the fact that they have never performed together before and that they agree to play covers.
All ticket proceeds and $1 from the sale of every Terrapin beer will go to Nuci’s Space. In addition, the 40 Watt asks that all fans come with a box of cereal in hand to donate to the food bank.
A Terrapin beer representative and Kevin Spence of the 40 Watt will judge the competition and present the prize at its conclusion.
“The winner gets to display the trophy, but winning means more than that,” Brad Fowler of Trappeze said. “They also get bragging rights over everyone else for the next year.”
If all goes well, the 40 Watt plans to make this an annual event, and no one is more thrilled about that than the battle of the bands participants. Trappeze’s The Maverick Mitchell Band has been preparing ’80s movie music covers for weeks.
“We decided to call ourselves The Maverick Mitchell Band after Tom Cruise’s character in Top Gun, and the name was also inspired by Dave Matthews,” Fowler said.
In similarly laid-back fashion, Griggs and his fellow Caledonia Lounge employees deemed themselves The Pencilthin Reefer Band.
“We decided to play Jimmy Buffet covers because he’s so ridiculous that we thought it would be funny,” Griggs said.
“Oh I can’t tell you what covers we’re playing,” Onstott of Last Resort Grill said. “It would ruin the surprise. All I can say is that we’re a glam rock band named Wild Cherry.”
The name was inspired by a fellow Last Resort employee’s bright yellow car that can frequently be seen parked outside the restaurant. The car has leather seats with a picture of a cherry on them and the word ‘wild’ written below each cherry.
Unlike Last Resort Grill or any other competing vendors, The Grit will boast two contenders. The Fist Mitts and Peppered with Rubbish will both compete because The Grit’s staff includes too many musicians to fit into one band.
Thomason, the drummer for Peppered with Rubbish, said his band’s name was a joke at first.
“We just put that name down until we could think of a better one, but it was so funny it stuck.”
Peppered with Rubbish will perform covers from The Rolling Stones, Nirvana and Kiss that Thomason said will be unrecognizable.
Some may see The Grit’s two entrants as an unfair advantage, but not Thomason.
“That’s just how we roll,” he said.
