The band Hey Hey's performance at Bear's Place has been canceled, owner David Grates said.
The band canceled their appearance, not Bear's Place, which will continue to function over the next few weeks. Any updated information on upcoming performances can be found on their Facebook page, Grates said.
IU student and self-proclaimed groupie Tamara Cheesman was excited to see her favorite local musician Rob Rosenthal’s upcoming concert at Bear’s Place advertised in the Indiana Daily Student back in 1984. Decades later, she's even more excited that her band Hey Hey is the one receiving IDS coverage for its Bear's Place concert 8 p.m. Saturday.
Cheesman said she's come full circle now that she'll be performing on the Bear's Place stage rather than cheering from the audience.
“I just can’t believe that in my 50s I can say I’m in a band,” Cheesman said. “It’s kind of every teenager’s dream.”
Hey Hey is a five-piece Americana band that performs songs from decades past, Cheesman said. The setlist includes country, folk and rock anthems that instantly take people back to old memories, she said.
“We play songs people grew up hearing,” Cheesman said. “It just brings instant joy to your heart and makes you feel at home.”
The mission of Hey Hey is to deliver well-known songs with its own twist, guitarist Aaron Grubb said. The band does this by deconstructing country rock songs and performing them with an acoustic setup, shifting the focus from electric instruments to vocal harmonies.
A lot of classic songs from the '70s might have strings or rock distortion guitar, Grubb said.
“We ask how can we do a song like that with the instrumentation on the vocals and do the song justice," Grubb said.
Hey Hey concerts almost always become singalongs because of how recognizable the group’s setlist is, bassist Lee Terrell said. He said that people especially love belting the lyrics to “Take Me Home, Country Roads" by John Denver, which is a staple of their shows.
But just because they’re a cover band playing hit songs doesn’t mean they don’t have their own sound, Terrell said.
“Anyone can go out there and reproduce songs they hear off the radio," he said. “We like to deliver them in our own special way. We aren’t going to go out there and give a complete regurgitation.”
Hey Hey isn’t looking for stardom—they’re just in it to play music, Terrell said. He said performing is an escape from the pressures of everyday life for the band members, who all have full-time careers outside of music.
“There’s something special about being able to step out for a few hours from the daily grind and spend your time with your band and your audience,” he said.
