Bob, Garth, Gerry, Eric, Kim, Patt & Barry- Jump for joy to perform at Melanie’s Pub for the first time!

Parousia’s performance schedule was filling up fast for the summer of 1980.  We were way too busy writing, performing, rehearsing, promoting and booking our own shows. We needed help with all the other stuff that didn’t have to do with writing and playing the music.

Through our network of fellow musicians at the Music Mall we met manager and booking agent Georgine Tramontana and invited her to see our band perform in July of 1980 at a little club called the Plant-6 on Niagara Street.

PAROUSIA at Plant-6 Niagara Street, July 1980

Georgine Tramontana – Adventure productions business card

She liked our band and wanted us to sign an exclusive deal. No one else could book us into clubs, schools or parties not even one of our own band members. This was exactly the kind of thinking we were trying to avoid BUT…we really wanted her help and she really wanted Parousia to be on her roster and so, we struck a deal. We didn’t have to go exclusive with her but she would take a higher cut of the earnings.  And so it began… our first booking through Adventure Productions was a rock club called “Melanie’s” at Main & Transit.

First gig at Melanie’s Flyer, Sunday July 20th, 1980

The July 20, 1980 show at Melanie’s marked the beginning of Parousia’s new “Good vs. Evil” show-set which brought into reality a complete re-arrangement of new and old material adding costumes, props and special effects. The show featured Parousia’s original songs, like “Cotton Holiday” and “Lucifer’s Lament” as well as cover songs by  Alice Cooper (“Second Coming” and “The Ballad of Dwight Fry”), Jethro Tull (“Locomotive Breath”, “Cross Eyed Mary”, “Hymn 43”), Kansas, (“the Portrait”) and Blondie (“One Way or Another” and “I Know But I Don’t Know”).

PAROUSIA administering their own brand of band-room justice… YOU SEE NOTHING!

We brought some of the songs to life using king-sized props. The song Hymn 43 featured a six foot wooden crucifix with a window shade across the horizontal arm. On queue, we would pull the shade down to reveal a large bingo card. Man did we piss a lot of Catholics off with that one, but people who make it a point to see live bands really liked it.

During the song “Ballad of Dwight Fry” we used dry ice to flood the stage and then Patt would crawl out in a straight jacket holding a brain that he would throw into the audience and then a flash pot exploded on stage in sync to the words, “Blown up in my face”. >Ka-BOOM<  Give a listen to the song here: https://soundcloud.com/garth-huels/second-coming-ballad-of-dwight-fry

We pulled-in an exceptionally good audience this night and the bar manager booked us right away for a return gig on Sunday, August 17th.

The Buffalo Brew Pub formerly known as the rock club “Melanie’s” 6861 Main Street near Transit.