Flint Township View

Rusty Wright Band to hold send off show at the Lava Room

Performance to benefit Adopt-A-Pet


MUNDY TWP. — The Rusty Wright Band (RWB) and The Lava Room will host a fundraiser for Adopt a Pet Inc. of Fenton, 8 p.m. Jan. 29.

The Lava Room located at G-2520 Hill Rd., Flint in the Shap’s Restaurant building. The Lava Room entrance is at the rear of the building. Adopt a Pet Inc. is a non-profit animal rescue organization with a no-kill policy.

The Jan. 29 show is a rare local appearance for the Flint-based Rusty Wright Band which now spends much of the year touring nationally and internationally.

General admission seating is on a first come basis. Doors open at 5 p.m. and music starts at 8 p.m. The club offers a full menu and food and beverages will be available for purchase.

There is no admission charge for the event but donations will be accepted at the door and there will be a lottery ticket basket raffle, 50/50 raffles and other raffles throughout the evening. Concert goers are asked to bring VGs grocery receipts to donate, and donations will be accepted at the door as well.

The concert fundraiser comes on the eve of the RWB’s departure for Memphis Tennessee where they will represent the Detroit Blues Society in the Blues Foundation’s 27th Annual International Blues Challenge (IBC).

More than 220 blues acts from across the globe will convene in Memphis Tennessee Feb. 1-5 to showcase and compete for the title of Best Unsigned Blues Act.

To qualify, bands and solo/duo artists must win local competitions sponsored by regional blues societies. The Detroit Blues Society is noted for holding the world’s largest and toughest IBC preliminary competition. In the history of the challenge, the Rusty Wright Band is the only act to win the Detroit competition more than once.

The group also competed in the 2007 International Blues Challenge and that experience helped Wright and his band make the transition from local band to international touring act. In 2009 RWB undertook an Armed Forces Entertainment tour to entertain US troops stationed in S. Korea and Japan and in 2010 the group embarked on their first international commercial tour, spending several weeks performing at festivals and concerts throughout Italy.

The band’s current lineup consists of guitarist/ vocalists Rusty Wright and his wife, Laurie LaCross-Wright, Dave Brahce on keyboards/ Hammond B3 organ, Andrew Barancik on bass, and Peter Haist on drums.

“In recent years we have hosted an annual Cabin Fever Music Fest in Davison which originated from our first IBC fundraiser. The last couple of years we have tried to raise awareness and funds for Adopt a Pet Inc. at that show, but we had to postpone the fest this year because the show date would fall too close to the date of our concert in Flint on March 25th with Johnny Winter at The Whiting,” said LaCross-Wright. “We still wanted to do something for our friends at Adopt a Pet though so we’ve put together a


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