Announcing the Huggy Bear 2007 Reunion Show!!!!
Sat. November 10th, 2007
10:30 p.m.
at
Joe & Joe’s
65 East Central Ave.
Pearl River, New York 10965
Mark your calendars for Huggy Bear's OFFICIAL REUNION SHOW!
This will be their ONLY public club appearance this year!!
Guaranteed to be a non-stop dance party!
Space is EXTREMELY LIMITED and you do NOT want to miss this!
We know many of you could not get into our final show last December, so please come early for dinner and guarantee yourself a spot!!
Joe & Joe’s serves great italian food in a friendly atmosphere.
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Watch a Huggy Slide show!!! Click here:
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From "The Rockland Review"; Nov. 3rd, 1999
By: Jordan Davis
Huggy Bear and the Sweathogs set the crowd at Fordy’s in Nanuet on fire playing to a costumed crowd on Halloween Night. There’s no better time for a party band than Halloween weekend when otherwise respectable people gather for the sole purpose of abandoning any trace of respectability. And there is no better place than a large bar packed with twenty-somethings ready to reminisce about things they weren’t alive to see.
Huggy Bear and the Sweathogs had both these factors weighing heavily in their favor when they took the stage at Fordy’s in Nanuet this weekend, igniting the costumed crowd to a Saturday night fever.
Huggy Bear and the Sweathogs have one specialty, as their name might imply, and it comes in a white leisure suit. They played a non-stop night of disco favorites that had everyone on the packed dance floor - up, down and "boogie-oogie-oogie-ing" the entire night.
What they do, they do it great. With its front man, two female vocalists, two guitarists, a bassist, keyboard player and drummer, the band was packed tight, but they used their superior numbers to produce full, complex and dynamic renditions of all the greatest hits from the late seventies.
The instrumentals were astonishingly faithful to the original artists. Special Kudos to the keyboard player, Tom Ryan, who recreated a slew of trumpets, saxophone and special effects to bring the salsa origins of the music to joyful animation.
Lead singer Huggy Bear’s energy and attitude carried him as he bantered with the crowd and directed all the onstage action. All in all, he offered an entirely serviceable performance considering the fact that the crowd often sang the lyrics louder than the band.
The real stars of the evening were the female vocalists, Erin O’Brien and Jennifer Olori. Often relegated to backup harmonies, they just as often outshone the lead. On the few occasions when one or the other took control of the mike, her power and style infused the band, energized the audience and made the music come fully and exhilaratingly alive. In one of the rare departures from polyester, O’Brien demanded and earned the "R E S P E C T" she so rightfully deserved.
Let there be no mistake, the farthest the band got from disco was "Greased Lightning". They avoided the entire music spectrum from Aerosmith to Led Zeppelin in the first ninety minutes, while delving into some seventies soul late into their second set.
You can’t argue with the results. Two hundred dancing queens dressed as Catholic schoolgirls and vampires cannot be wrong. As Kelly from Rockland MRI so succinctly stated, "They’re really a fun band." On a Saturday night that’s all that matters.
You won’t learn anything from Huggy Bear and the Sweathogs but dim all the lights sweet darling, step into this disco inferno, and oh, what a night you’ll have.
Huggy Bear and the Sweathogs play venues all over Rockland County and the Tri-State area. The band is composed of Huggy Bear on lead vocals, Pat O’Malley on guitar, Dave Baron on bass, Tom Ryan on keyboards, George Pagonis on drums and Erin O’Brien and Jen Olori on vocals.
Final Grade: A+
