Summer-ending concert may become
yearly event on Logan Martin Lake
Jason Rogoff and Jeff Thompson found the cure for the quarantined summer blues: an outdoor rock concert … during Labor Day weekend.
But it cannot be your normal concert.
This one has to be arranged in less than eight weeks; it has to feature a sought-after performer who just happens to be available because of pandemic cancellations; it has to provide seating that socially distances audience members attending by land and huge video screens visible to those attending by boat; it has to raise funds for two entities, and it has to be full of energy.
That concert – which was on Sept. 4 at Pell City Sports Complex on the shores of Logan Martin Lake – fulfilled all the requirements and quite possibly began an annual event.
For the concert, the Black Jacket Symphony performed the songs from the Queen album, A Night at the Opera, and featured the vocal talent of Marc Martel.
Martel provided some vocals for Bohemian Rhapsody, the biopic about Queen’s late lead singer Freddie Mercury, said Rogoff, director and producer of the Black Jacket Symphony.
Thompson, who is director of the Center for Education and Performing Arts (CEPA) in Pell City, said Rogoff approached him about an outdoor concert patterned after others that the Black Jacket Symphony had held in Birmingham.
For the Black Jacket Symphony, this would be a return visit to Pell City.
In February 2020, the Black Jacket Symphony performed Fleetwood Mac’s album, Rumours, in concert at CEPA and had scheduled Led Zeppelin IV for May. But COVID containment measures canceled Led Zeppelin IV.
Visit the Black Jacket Symphony online
at blackjacketsymphony.com
