Golden Hour Music Series

Doors open at 4:30pm

$10 cover

Mectapus 26th Anniversary Reunion, June 30, 2023

Get ready for a VERY SPECIAL event! Here is your chance to see Mectapus, live for the first time since maybe before you were born, or reborn, or for a long time at least. It's been more than 15 years since the band last played in Ithaca. See them for one show and one show only. Though the band might like to say "we will see you soon" and "we will be back," herding seven cats across four states in an era of chaos is ... less likely than winning the Powerball. It's so rare that we do not even have a photo of the band that is more current than the Clinton Administration. So here's an old memory ...

In July 1997 this unique seven piece band united in Ithaca, NY. With diverse musical backgrounds and awesome, complex chemistry, Eric Aceto, Michael Cerza, Peter Dougan, Andrew Farnsworth, Chad Lieberman, Joe Palermo, and Charlie Shew wrote original music inspired by a wide array of genres that spoke to and influenced each of them in their own unique ways. These included Afrobeat, Latin jazz and traditional, bluegrass, country, progressive and classic rock, new age, funk, R & B, and more. Some non-musical influences also infiltrated the band's aesthetic, including puppetry, modern American history, botany, and ornithology. The band's performances garnered them local notoriety, as did a thoroughly illegal and moderately low impact but high profile campaign of stickering as much of the planet's terrestrial space as possible; and, though occasionally featuringbombastic puppet shows and unusual music props (and of course more than once warnings from local and regional law enforcement to stop applying their promotional stickers on most available surfaces), its core aesthetics were and continue to be camaraderie, fun, and energy right up to the edge of taste - playing up to and occasionally beyond this point (and rarely far beyond this point).

The band strives always for joy above perfection, embodying a mantra of the band - let happiness prevail among this human infestation! Instrumentation on this night will feature acoustic and electric guitars, violin and mandolin, bass, drums and percussion, keyboards and other keyed instruments, and the occasional brass and wind instruments. 

Tonight’s performance will span the band's musical catalog, mostly available with effort here. This evening's event will be documented live by whatever means are available (hopefully excluding sketch artists, depending on how guilty we might be of playing too many notes).