McFly back in time
Back to the Mixtape 2 a tribute to classic film, music
If Richard Bouchard and Nate Rogers had Doc Brown’s DeLorean and some plutonium, the pair might go back in time and correct a few glitches at their first Back to the Mixtape event.
Held at Thunder Road last fall, the concert and celebration of all things “Back to the Future” featured local musicians doing sets of tunes from 1955 and 1985. It was glorious (even if I foolishly forgot to include it in my column about the best shows of 2018). But Bouchard and Rogers thought it could be perfected.
“There are always little things that you want to fix,” Bouchard said. “But the first
one still could be seen as a proof of concept. We sold out Thunder Road so now we’re at a bigger place.”
Actually, two bigger places. Back to the Mixtape 2 goes down locally on Saturday, Aug. 17 at the Sinclair and hits Littlefield in Brooklyn on Friday, Aug. 16. Both events feature the Fatal Flaw and Pastel Noir doing hits from ’85 (expect Huey Lewis, Duran Duran, Tears for Fears) and a DJ spinning tunes from 2015; jukebox smashes from ’55 will be handled by Nate Leavitt and the Elevation here and Frankie Sunswept in Brooklyn.
Rogers, a local musician, started the Mixtape events in 2010 by paying tribute to 1993. Over a couple years, the series covered years from 1967 to 1997 then, burned out, Rogers ended the shows in 2015. But Rogers and Bouchard, the promoter behind One Night Band, resurrected it in October, thinking about how to do a ’50s night.
“We were trying to figure out a way to do 1955 and, if you’re Nate and I, when you think of 1955 you automatically think of ‘Back to the Future,’ ” Bouchard said. “It became so obvious, ‘We’ll do 1955 then we’ll have (a video projection from the film of) lightning striking the clock tower and immediately it’s 1985.’ Then we added the DJ set of 2015 for the second movie and we were done.”
The idea seems perfect for spinning out across the country, something akin to Lebowski Fest and its annual celebration of “The Big Lebowski.”
“People love this music and people love ‘Back to the Future’ so this could be something we do more but it really depends on the bands,” he said. “Do they want to do it all the time when they have their own music to do as well?”
Which brings us to a distinction between a night of pro-tribute acts and Back to the Mixtape: This event isn’t like a couple of wedding bands grinding out hits they perform 20 weekends a year. All the musicians playing the Mixtape parties spend most of their time playing original music. Mixtape is the side project and not the other way around.
“We can’t just rely on a Facebook event to tell people what this is because it’s not a cover show,” Bouchard said. “It’s a tribute to these movies and these songs done by original bands who (do the material) really well. They aren’t just phoning it in, they’re playing these songs the way they were meant to be played. … Then there are costumes and movie projections.”
Case in point: At the October event, Fatal Flaw frontman Joel Reader whipped off his shades, launching them into the ecstatic crowd just as the band punched into the giant chorus of “Power of Love.” It rivaled the energy of Marty McFly mixing Chuck Berry and Eddie Van Halen. You won’t get that anywhere else. Unless you take that DeLorean back to the Enchantment Under The Sea dance.