ELO tribute band featuring New Carlisle brothers to rock Summer Arts Festival

Week five of the 57th Summer Arts Festival leads off Wednesday with Turn to Stone: A Tribute to ELO in Veterans Park. The band includes two brothers from New Carlisle.

Credit: Contributed

Credit: Contributed

Week five of the 57th Summer Arts Festival leads off Wednesday with Turn to Stone: A Tribute to ELO in Veterans Park. The band includes two brothers from New Carlisle.

Week five of the Summer Arts Festival will be juiced up by a tribute to one of the most underrated bands of the 1970s and ‘80s, one with songs you may recognize but may not associate with the band.

Turn to Stone: A Tribute to ELO will create the sights and sounds of a classic concert complete with a light show, costumes and string section to play hits including “Evil Woman,” “Don’t Bring Me Down,” “Xanadu” and “Mr. Blue Sky.”

The show will be at 8 p.m. Wednesday at Veterans Park. Admission is free, but donations to support the series will be taken during intermission pass the hat offerings.

Although only 25, Turn to Stone’s bassist Chase Heck, who helped found the band, gained an appreciation for ELO, also known as Electric Light Orchestra, although its peak was long before he was born. In 2021, he persuaded longtime friends and bandmates from another group, brothers and New Carlisle natives Adam Clark and Coleman Clark, and added dad Bill Heck to fill a need to keep the music out there as he discovered few ELO tributes in this part of the country.

“It was created as a way to showcase this music. The music of ELO for our instrumentation and vocals just fit,” said Heck. “They have so many good songs and all four of us thought the same thing in starting it.”

ELO founder Jeff Lynne helped create the band to stand out by combining pop and classical music sounds, adding strings. So while the four members play the guitar, bass, keyboards and drums, Heck added a violinist and two cellists from chamber music ensemble Viva La Strings to complete the sound.

Heck said having no more than eight musicians on stage at any time sets Turn to Stone apart from other ELO tributes, that have 11-14 people onstage.

Add in costumes and wigs that resemble ELO members and the light show that coordinates to the music, and the goal is to recreate the spirit ELO at its concert peak.

While classic rock bands like Pink Floyd, The Beatles and Guns N’ Roses get plenty of radio airplay, ELO is more of a rarity. Heck hopes this is a chance for audiences to appreciate them in a new way. Some may already be familiar with ELO’s song “Mr. Blue Sky,” which got new life in recent years in commercials and movies like “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2″ and “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.”

They already having future bookings and want to add video to future performances. They are ready for Springfield, their first such show in the area. The band members have attended shows here previously including the recent That Arena Rock Show.

“It’s always been a goal of ours to play on that stage, and we’re glad we are going to,” said Heck.

Those who can’t make this show can see Turn to Stone locally at the upcoming Clark County Fair on July 26. The musicians played there previously as the other group, the Blue Leaf’s, doing classic songs from the 1950s through the ‘80s.

Other Summer Arts Festival shows this week include a cappella band Fourth Avenue on Thursday; Superstar: The Songs. The Stories. The Carpenters on Friday; Fleetwood Gold: The Fleetwood Mac Experience on Saturday; and “The Comedy of Errors” performed by the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company on Sunday.

All performances begin at 8 p.m., and lawn chairs and blankets can be set up at 6 a.m. the morning of a show. Concession stands will be open during the programs.

Festival attendees are encouraged to follow weather reports prior to the show to be aware of the potential of bad weather, which could delay or cancel an event.

For more information on the festival, go to www.springfieldartscouncil.org/.

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