Where to start on this one, but I’ll synopsize: I became friends with Darrell Dodge in the 7th grade, and we played in a rock band (Travis) in HS from 1970-1973. Then I was off to college as a music major (trumpet). Darrell joined a band after HS graduation called “Incubus’ (not to be confused with the 90’s Incubus, this group preceded them by 20 years). In my sophomore college year I went to see Darrell’s new band and was impressed. I asked Darrell to talk with his Incubus band and see if they wanted to try horns…at this point I had become close friends with fellow classmates Mark (trombone) and Dave (sax). We came up with a set and did our first gig (with no prior practice) with Incubus at our college (University of Maine, Orono). After that Incubus went from being a rock band to a funk band in a matter of weeks. We enjoyed 3 years of lucrative tours, much to the detriment of my college social life (I was playing most weekends). Upon graduation Dave went to NYC to do further studies and Incubus did another year with trumpet player (Bill) and a female singer. Whew.

Now segue about twenty years later; somehow we all got together in 1997 to play a couple of gigs in Orono, Maine. I had hung up the horn but practiced for 6 months prior to be able to play that weekend, thankfully with Bill as the other trumpet player.

Then, at the end of last year (2023), one of the band members started texting about a possible 50 year reunion. My first response was, “yeah, my horn playing days are over…the last time I played was 27 years ago.” But then, all the other members were like, “Yeah, that would be cool, count me in!” So I could either sit on the sidelines or “horn up.” I dusted off the trumpet in January and endured months of ugliness, basically relearning how to play a finicky instrument. Luckily I barely reached a minimum level just a week before the June 28th Gig at Lost Valley Ski Resort in Maine. It’s hard to describe, but all of us, close to 70 years old or older, just clicked like no time had passed; we did two rehearsals of 4 hours each, then hit the stage for a 3 hour gig. To be up there playing with such fine musicians (I was really the only one who was “non current”) was surreal, something I thought would never happen again. I seems the relationships one establishes early in life just carry through to the coffin. A simply incredible experience.

As of this publication date I have edited the first half of our gig, which I’m doing in 4 parts. The original bass player, Mike, was present and introduced the band but was unable to play at that time due to health reasons. We had a professional sound manager and I had access to 4 different video streams. I’ll finish Parts III and IV when time permits. And yes, we were a 70’s band so the crowd was kinda old, like us. This blog is a bit off the “outdoors” topics I usually do but hey, it’s my non monetized site so there you go. Listen in if you remember bands like Chicago, Tower of Power, Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan, and even (gag), K.C. and the Sunshine Band (it was the disco era so we had to do some of those covers).