{"id":27319,"date":"2020-08-21T10:40:17","date_gmt":"2020-08-21T14:40:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=27319"},"modified":"2020-08-21T10:40:24","modified_gmt":"2020-08-21T14:40:24","slug":"soul-benefit-brings-rb-motown-and-spirit-of-giving-to-concerts-in-the-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/soul-benefit-brings-rb-motown-and-spirit-of-giving-to-concerts-in-the-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Soul Benefit brings R&B, Motown and spirit of giving to Concerts in the Park"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It is hard to practice social distancing when rehearsing with your band, but if there is a will, there\u2019s also a way \u2013 provided you have enough space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, for Soul Benefit\u2019s Steve Falk, there was plenty of room to go around in the parking lot of his Industrial Parkway North-based business Prime Data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the easing of restrictions allowed them to get together once again, the sounds of Soul Benefit, a popular local band which pools their talents to help local charities and non-profits raise funds for a variety of worthy causes, have rung out from the asphalt, with the occasional coyote or feral cat sauntering down nearby railway tracks their only audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That audience is set to get a whole lot larger next Wednesday, August 26, when Soul Benefit takes over the bandshell of Town Park as part of the Town of Aurora\u2019s popular Concerts in the Park summer series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEveryone in the band is excited to pay in front of people again,\u201d says Mr. Falk. \u201cFrom the standpoint of musicians who love to get together, play music, and the social experience of it, it was really hard to be locked down like everyone else, but musicians often had these gigs to look forward to as social animals; they would have a couple of nights a week where they would meet with their fellow musicians and play. Suddenly, that just came to an end and you\u2019re at home. Even just playing at home was limiting. People just got cut off.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like so many musicians, Soul Benefit found an outlet through new channels, keeping in practice \u2013 and staying social with each other \u2013 through Zoom and other platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur band has 14 members who all looked forward to Thursday night as our rehearsals, as they had been for 22 years,\u201d says Mr. Falk. \u201cWe just started doing it on Zoom and although it wasn\u2019t musical, it was a chance to remember that we\u2019re all there and we\u2019re all looking forward to getting back together again. That carried us through for many weeks and then, suddenly, they said we could meet with 10 people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Out came the extension cords, which were strung across the Prime Data parking lot, and musicians claimed the 10 available rehearsal spots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soul Benefit is cognizant of how the lockdown and quarantine impacted the arts and culture sector. It is not a community that has a traditional \u201csafety net,\u201d says Mr. Falk, and so many people who rely on regular gigs were impacted. For a group that supports non-profits, and not being able to play for them at events that were necessarily shut down, they have seen struggles beyond the music industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t wait to be back supporting local organizations the way we have for 20 years, playing music and supporting them at their events, but here is a first step,\u201d says Mr. Falk of next week\u2019s Concerts in the Park event, noting they are putting together a program of everything from Aretha Franklin to Amy Winehouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe want to make people feel awesome,\u201d he says, conceding that building a program for a concert where people are required to stay in their social bubbles, refrain from getting up and dancing, and are even discouraged from singing along, has been a bit of a challenge. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t do an hour and a half of keeping it down \u2013 we\u2019re not a zen meditation band!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a tough time and music is good for the soul and we want to be able to produce some of that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more on Aurora\u2019s Concerts in the Park lineup, including how to register for the 100 spots available in Town Park, visit aurora.ca\/concertsinthepark. Showtime is 7 \u2013 8.30 p.m. and online registration is free. Concerts are also streamed live on YouTube and through the Town\u2019s social media channels.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is hard to practice social distancing when rehearsing with your band, but if there is a will, there\u2019s also a way \u2013 provided you have enough space. Fortunately, for Soul Benefit\u2019s Steve Falk, there was plenty of room to go around in the parking lot of his Industrial Parkway North-based business Prime Data. Since […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-76D","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-09 18:22:14","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27319\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}