Long Island folk-rock triumvirate Gathering Time will revisit the music of the turbulent 1960s during a special “Summer of Love Celebration” drive-in concert at the LIU-Post Tilles Center Friday, July 24, at 8 p.m.
The show, which will feature some of the era’s most iconic love and protest songs, will take place in the parking lot behind the concert hall with cars staggered every other space for safe social distancing. The music will be broadcast on the campus radio station, WCWP 88.1-FM, as well as amplified through a sound system.
According to Gathering Time’s guitarist Stuart Markus, many of the songs that will be performed during the exclusive show will be featured on the band’s forthcoming album Old Friends, which is slated for a September 1 release.
“The collection includes a number of socially-conscious songs from the 1960s era that have gained a renewed relevance to current times,” he said. “For example, ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’ leads off the album. It speaks to the fact that life runs in cycles and history is like a pendulum. What we’re going through now – racial strife, civic unrest, economic and political crises – we’ve endured as a nation, a society, and as a human race, before. We can get through this — hopefully emerging the better.”
Markus adds that amid the Black Lives Matter protests, the racially-charged reactions, the riots and the sometimes vitriolic polarization of public health, the group decided to release “Get Together,” a song made famous by the Youngbloods in 1969, as an advance single.
“It seemed a message that needed to be heard again, that what unites us is greater than what divides us, and that our better angels are stronger than our worst demons as a society,” he said. “The reaction we’ve gotten from folk DJs has been overwhelmingly enthusiastic.”
Not that the night will be all heavy and serious. The set list for the July 24 concert will include songs including “You Were On My Mind,” about the unbridled joy of falling in love; joyful classics like Freddy and Dreamers’ “I’m Telling You Now,” and the Left Banke’s song of longing, “Walk Away Renee.”
Markus hastens to add, “Music of the ‘60s wasn’t all about antiwar, antiestablishment and civil rights protests. People were still falling in love and having babies, forming friendships and starting families. There’s plenty of great music about that too.”
Tickets for Friday night’s concert are available at https://tillescenter.org/summer-2020/.
The Tilles Center is located at 720 Northern Blvd. Brookville, NY.
For more information about Gathering Time, visit https://gathering-time.com
