Upping the Ante with 8th Annual Band Roulette ‘Ladies Night’

One of the most existential and potentially unpredictable musical showcases that is equally an annual tradition as much as it is a phenomenon involving the moving parts of many musicians is the annual Band Roulette Fundraiser, which has become an artistic and cultural highlight of the Winter Arts scene in the Great Lakes Bay Region.

Returning once again to Bay City’s historic State Theatre on Sunday, February 2^nd, at 5:00 PM, this year the spotlight will be shining on the impressive collection of talented female artists nourishing our region with the 8^th Annual BAND ROULETTE Ladies Night, which to date has raised approximately $25,000 supporting the admirable endeavors of the D-Street Music Foundation.

D-Street is a respected non-profit foundation focused upon fostering the talents of young musicians through scholarship and instrument acquisition programs, while also showcasing the artistry of musical talent populating our region by presenting various showcase performance festivals in the region throughout the year such as Parkapalooza.  Additionally, this year proceeds will also be shared with All Music is Power - a special program that brings live music into special needs classrooms for area students.

Conceived by Bay City musician Jeff Poirier, the concept for Band Roulette is similar to a musical variation of ‘Who’s Line Is It Anyway’, consisting of a pool of instrumental and vocally based artists whose names are drawn from a hat to form a five-piece band that is then called upon to perform whatever specific song the newly formed band drew on the spot for audiences.

Sound like fun?  There’s nothing like the excitement of watching a possible train wreck, which both adds to the excitement and also elevates the applause when these impromptu bands actually make it through their songs; more often than not with surprising results and escalated gratitude from the audience, which is only one of many factors that makes Band Roulette such an innovative event.

This year’s cavalcade of stars set to be thrown into the musical stewing pot to mix and blend their own unique flavors together consist of: Jen Cass, Kimberly Megoran, Tracy Sullivan, Amber Yocom, Amber Foster, Robyn Grimsley, Allison Scott, Noel Howland, Lora Dale, Melissa Curry, Michelle Nellett, Shannon Schnettler, and Alexandria McMath.  Additionally, the ladies will be receiving a little musical help from their male friends: Joe Sullivan, Dana Osmun, Dave Miller, Andy Dalton, Donny Brown, Andy Scott, Bruce LaFrance, Jeff Hoyt, Mike McMath, and Mike Thomas.

Having mixed the musical pot with the hot popular songs emanating from male artists for the past seven years, shifting over to the female side of Rock ‘n Roll posed different sets of challenges for Poirier in terms of pulling this year’s extravaganza together. 

“When Band Roulette began it was aimed at a certain group of musicians - guys who played in rock cover bands in the ‘80s and ‘90s and had a giant well of songs that all these different players knew and were familiar with,” he explains. “With women the range of popular songs is way more diverse, and they don’t have that ‘Dirty 30’ in terms of songs that would be easy to pull off.  I struggled selecting the songs to put in the hat this year, because when that song is pulled I want at least two to four people on that stage who have played it before.  If you pull a song nobody has played, you’ll have a train wreck.”

Jeff says he finally came up with 20 songs that will be thrown in the hat and are up for grabs at this year’s fundraiser, and the first set will consist of mainly female led songs, with the second set more of a mixed bag. “My goal is I want everything to work. A lot of women turned me down, and I just had one drop out, so I picked up a couple guys to fill the spots. I don’t want anyone feeling humiliated, but part of the fun in doing Band Roulette is being an adventurer.”

In addition to the gender focused shift of the show, another challenge Poirer has been dealing with is the growing pains involved with the shifting ownership at The State Theatre in the aftermath of the accountability fiasco that signaled the closure of its non-profit status, which resulted in tickets for this year’s Band Roulette going on sale only weeks in advance of the event,  

“Normally we put ticket sales for next year’s show out two weeks after last year’s show, and usually sell a big batch right after we make the announcement, so we have close to a year to sell them,” he notes. “Because we require reserved seating and a ticketing service was implemented by the new ownership that doesn’t charge as high service fees as the previous one, but wasn’t set up for reserved seating, it required quite a bit of work to handle the transitioning to this new company’s format for a seating chart.   It’s all part of growing pains, but I’m a little worried about the short time frame we have to move tickets and hit our goal.”

“People don’t realize how involved this event is, because it requires seats in the audience for the players, and when people buy sets of tickets they don’t want to be seated apart, and then you add in getting the line-ups pulled together, it gets pretty stressful, which is why I’m really pleased that D-Street Music Foundation is partnering with us on handling things we never had to deal with before, such as alcohol sales now that The State is no longer a non-profit.”

“There’s a lot that’s been happening late in the year for this event,” concludes Jeff, “but in addition to D-Street both Jordan Dice and the staff at The State Theatre have been great to work with.  With the lower $2.00 service fee tickets are only $22.13 while previously they were close to $7.00, and people can call the Box Office  at 989-892-2660  and leave a phone message they will return so you can order tickets that way, but the best way is to get them is online.”

You can do that by visiting this link.