NORTHAMPTTON — When The Rolling Stones sing the lyric, “this could be the last time,” it’s an ultimatum and warning to a wayward romantic partner.
But when a band of senior citizens uses that line as the title of an annual holiday show, the words take on a different feeling.
The band, Fat, was one of the first local groups to garner a national record contract back in the 1970s. While no longer a band that regularly plays out, three of the core members — Peter Newland, Jim Kaminski and Guy DeVito — have still gotten together for a holiday show over the past decade or so.
This year’s gig will be at the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton on Dec. 27 at 6 p.m. Other notable acts such as Mitch Chakour and Worcester-born Cliff Goodwin, both who played with Joe Cocker at various times, will also be on the bill.
But it started to occur to frontman Peter Newland that unlike another Stones’ song, time is definitely not on their side. Newland made it clear that he was not trying to scare anyone nor dampen the holiday spirit with the show’s title. He was merely doing the math and didn’t want fans to think that the band had an endless number of shows left.
“We’ve always prided ourselves on being a band who is going to die with their boots on. And we’ve managed to overcome a lot of obstacles and barriers, whether it’s a business situation or personality conflicts, and we always found a way to get around them no matter how big they were,” Newland said in a recent interview with The Republican.
“But now we’re running into mortality, and whether it be mortality or physical conditions or just other situations with life itself, I just wanted to gently get the idea out there that this thing that we do will be over sometime soon.”
Of course, like most rock ‘n’ roll acts, Fat was probably seen as being at the height of their powers when they were in their 20s. Newland was an animated frontman who could transfix an audience’s attention with a double-barrel attack of powerful vocals and energetic stage moves. Counterbalanced by the edgy guitar salvos from Jim Kaminski and underpinned by Guy DeVito’s groove-laden basslines, the band had no trouble rising above most other local acts at the time.
Now, however, the members have aged, so what do they have now to replace the fire and intensity of their youth?
“I think one of the reasons that young bands are great, especially in rock ‘n’ roll, is that you don’t know how to play, but if you have a good instinct, you have to invent things that school players probably wouldn’t do,” he said. “So, one thing we still pride ourselves on is that we make sure we still have that raw element and we still try to bring that sort of garage type of energy.”
As the frontman, Newland himself especially has to find pathways to keep the energy power of the band focused. Since he no longer leaps around the stage, he leans in on the emotional impact of the songs.
“One thing that I’m proud of is that people come up to me all the time and tell me that my voice is as good or better than it was back then, so just let the music do the talking,” he said. “So, I just fall back on the music and make sure I’m connected to the emotion and that the emotion is young and raw.”
But Newland still thinks it’s the alchemy of the original members that creates the ongoing magic. He would never want to simply be seen as a nostalgic act; he wants old fans to find new ways to enjoy the music and new fans to discover what the fuss has always been about.
“There’s an ingredient in there that’s hard to find, and that ingredient is time itself. Check whiskey, check wine, it’s the aging process – and it’s a cliché now – but it’s what makes something superlative,” he said. “And when I take the stage with these guys, it’s something I do with reverence. For me it’s rarified air.”
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.masslive.com ’
