This was Parousia’s first paid gig ever. We were to earn an unprecedented $200.00! We were very excited because the Holy Angels Academy Sophomore/Freshman date dance was our golden opportunity to break out into a larger market where bands got paid to play. Over 100 high school students were expected to be in attendance at Holy Angels, our biggest audience to date!
Holy Angels Academy, Buffalo NY
Alan Swan, (fellow St. Joseph’s alumnus, close friend and fan of Parousia), was helping us land the gig at Holy Angels through his girlfriend (and present day wife), Rae Anne Hertel, who was attending School there.
Alan has a special place in the history of our rock band because back in the summer of 1975, the members of Parousia came together for the first time in Alan’s tent that was set up on his front lawn. It was there that we decided to name the band “Parousia” and who was going to play what instruments. Then we decided who would be the band’s manger, booking agent, advertising, etc. Alan was our first booking agent and Gary Cherneski would help out with advertising. We were happy to have both of these good friends in our little rag-tag entourage.
Alan Swan, Parousia’s first booking agent / manager – 1976
The Holy Angels gig was such an important show that we started rehearsing our set of songs twice a week. Along the way, we were being heavily scrutinized by Alan and Rae Anne who had a lot invested in us and wanted to be sure we were ready and sounding good. They were very concerned about whether we had the “right mix of songs” appropriate for a high-school date dance and that we had someone ‘great’ to sing them.
May 16th, 1976 Rehearsal for Holy Angels Academy Date Dance.
That’s when Rae Anne, Alan and the Holy Angels Academy decided they wanted us to work with a singer they knew and liked, Bob Byzante. It was put to us in this way… either we include him in the gig or, we didn’t get the gig. Well, we knew that if we wanted to make the transition from garage band to working band we had to take him on and give it a try. So, Byzante started practicing with Parousia on May 9, 1976. We captured these photos from one of our rehearsals in my grandma’s garage located at 105 Baxter Street in Riverside.
Left to right: Patt Connolly (back), Mike Newell (crouching), Bob Byzante (bored and showing it), Barry Cannizzaro (back), John McGovern, Gary Cherneski (in back sitting at my drum kit), Steve Soos and Pam Jaeger (far right)
May 16th, 1976 – Bob Byzante – temp singer with Parousia. In back, Mike Newell (bass) and Barry Cannizzaro (guitar)
With the proverbial gun to our head, we tried our best to get along with Byzante, but we didn’t have the same set of songs in mind to perform at the show. We had a different vision of Parousia. We strived to achieve a more progressive rock sound, while Byzante’s idea was for us to sound more like the Brady Bunch.
May 16th – Bob Byzante (temporarily) with Parousia
The gap grew wider with each rehearsal. In the last six days before the show, we fired him on May 19th and the grand responsibility of being the lead vocalist for the band was passed onto Patt Connolly.
Steve, Barry, John and Bob Byzante. May 16th, 1976 Rehearsal for Holy Angels Academy Date Dance
May 16th, 1976 Rehearsal for Holy Angels Academy Date Dance
Before this day, the responsibility for singing the songs fell on me and Barry, John and Patt. However, at the moment we fired Bob Byzante, it became official… from now on Patt Connolly would be the lead singer and front man for Parousia and so it remained up until the band retired in 1992.
Our first band contract for our first paid gig, the Holy Angels Academy date dance. We were paid an unprecedented $200! Notice how the contract emphasizes that we “BE APPROPRIATE.” That was hard for us to do because we were the kind of band that liked to ‘flip people out’ when given the chance…
Yo’ dogs, Barry the dim witted comin’ at ya’ with another story from the history of Parousia. I remember Bob Byzante and during one of our rehearsals we were practicing down Steve Soos’ basement on Eckhert St. I remember that Bob insisted we play the songs that he was familiar with and knew how to sing well like, ‘Moondance’ by Van Morrison and ‘Wild Horses’ by the Rolling Stones. Both were good songs but the problem was, Bob didn’t want to sing any of our songs that we had been rehearsing almost a year… not fair! He was so obnoxious about it we couldn’t take it anymore until I had to lay down the hammer dawgs! So i turned to Bob and said, Look Bob, if that’s the way you feel then maybe we should part company right now. He scoffed at that and then i told him to get out! I was so loud that Mr and Mrs. Soos came down to see what was going on. That was that. Bob was gone and Parousia was back to it’s usual members. We made Pat the official lead singer ’cause that guy had one set of mean pipes! Barrymania over and out.