Can a 13-member band, complete with a four-piece horn section, blow this recession out of Winston-Salem?
That's what downtown boosters are hoping when Party on the Moon comes to town Friday night.
The band, based in Atlanta, will play at the Millennium Center as part of the Downtown Partnership and the Arts Council's effort to improve and buffer downtown business through tough economic times.
"When we were kicking around ideas, one of them was, ‘We want to throw a party,'" said Jason Thiel, the president of the Downtown Partnership.
A ticket to the party -- the Snow Ball -- is free if you spend at least $25 at a downtown business in February. Spend another $25, get another ticket. You can also buy tickets outright for $10.
Dennis Smith, Party on the Moon's band leader and a guitarist, describes the band's music as a combination of Earth, Wind and Fire and Journey. "It has a pop edge to it with a lot of horns and a lot of soul." The band includes five singers -- four women, and one man -- and a horn section -- a sax, two trumpets and a trombone. "We've got national-caliber musicians," Smith added. "We've all had record deals that went sideways. So five years ago I decided to put together the biggest corporate band in the world."
But he didn't have a name. A contractor working on Smith's house announced that he was going to "party on the moon." Smith asked him what he meant, and the contractor told him it was a euphemism used by Studio 54 partiers to indicate that they were going to get high.
Smith, however, thought it sounded like the perfect band name. "I'd been looking for names for months. He was an angel dressed as a hammer-toting, pot-smoking hippie," he laughed.
Party on the Moon has since played lots of big parties, including Eli Manning's wedding last spring and the Western States Inaugural Ball in Washington last month.
About one-third of the band's gigs are weddings, but Smith said there isn't much difference between a fun wedding reception and a concert. "It used to be like a wedding band was a quiet band in the corner. Not any more. They want people dancing from beginning to end. An iPod or a DJ can't compete with a great band."
Oh, and the YMCA? The Electric Slide? Party on the Moon takes requests, but not those. "There's no cheese allowed," Smith said.
Think Etta James … or her modern-day counterpart, Beyonce. Motown. Maybe a little beach music. Some standards and swing. "You thread the needle between hip enough for young people and tame enough so you don't scare off Grandma and Grandpa," Smith said.
Business is down in downtown Winston-Salem, by and large, Thiel said. Earlier this month, the Downtown Partnership started a promotion of restaurants called the Big Eat. Participating restaurants are offering 50 percent off one entree every Tuesday through the end of March. "We feel you have to be proactive in order to compete. Give people a reason to spend," Thiel said.
Give people a reason to dance, too. "It's important for people to have fun, even more important now," Smith said.
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