By Allison Worrell
CCC Journalism Program
BLACKWOOD – A free show with the band Kneebody will be held April 16 on Camden County College’s Blackwood campus. The Grammy-nominated, indie-rockin’, jazz playin’, hip hopin’ band will perform a lunchtime concert in Civic Hall.
Five musicians came together to form the band: Adam Benjamin on keyboards, Shane Endsley on trumpet, Ben Wendel on tenor sax, Kaveh Rastegar on bass, and Nate Wood on drums. Rastegar said, “Most of us met in college. In 1999 we all moved to L.A., got together and started playing together as a band in L.A. shortly after that.”
Kneebody has landed on many different turfs to perform. Italy, Austria, France, California, and New Jersey are some of them. “The band name Kneebody came from a nonsense word that one of our girlfriends suggested out of the blue,” Rastegar said.
Why would Kneebody want to perform at CCC? Rastegar explained, “We have played at Camden College a few times. The invitation first came from Professor Mike Billingsley, who heard us through hearing Shane’s first CD, ‘2nd guess’. It’s such a great place to play, really great environment and always great people to play for. I can’t say enough how important people like Mike are to us as artists and to schools and universities we travel to. We’re really looking forward to this trip.”
Ever wonder what weird things happen on tour? Kneebody described this one that happened to them. “The morning after the gig (in Philadelphia) after we had packed the van and were backing out of a driveway someone realized that my bass had been left outside in the driveway,” Rastegar said. “And then after getting out of the van, I quickly realized that we had been backing over my bass repeatedly with the van trying to turn it around … that led to a silent and sad drive to our next gig in Rochester where I had to borrow a bass.”
Kneebody will perform a free concert for students and staff at 12:30 p.m. April 16 in Civic Hall in the Madison-Connector Building. Seats are first come, first serve. The band will host a question-and-answer session with students after the show.