Culture
’80s Athens Band to Reunite for OU Inn Show
< < Back toOn June 4, 1983, Athens power-pop band The Back Beat played its final performance to a sweaty, packed house at The Union.
This Saturday—32 years later—the quartet will reform for one more night in Athens.
It won’t be at The Union, for obvious reasons, but the spirit of that venue will be brought poolside at the Ohio University Inn at 6 p.m. The performance is open to the public with a pass-the-hat donation for the band’s travel expenses.
The Back Beat formed in 1981 following the Athens punk rock explosion in the late ’70s, brought on by Rick Ronco & The K-Tels and The Feral Children, and aided and abetted by biker band The Bogus Brothers.
The Back Beat’s stature grew as more Ohio University students and Athens locals sought danceable, high-energy rock ’n’ roll as an alternative to the other musical styles in the area, according to a press release issued by the band.
Original members, all OU students at the time, were Mark Drop (guitar, vocals), Tim Frew (guitar, vocals), Erich Ackermann (bass, vocals) and David Umbenhour (drums). Ackermann passed away in 2006.
For the reunion gig, David McLean will handle the bass parts. McLean was a member of The K-Tels and a cohort of Drop’s in an earlier band called The Boss Guitars.
For a time, The Back Beat holed up in a makeshift practice space behind a movie screen at the Athena Cinema during off hours. Today, Drop admits that rehearsing and playing with the band was a bit more exciting than sitting in a classroom.
“I didn’t major in advertising in college,” he said. “I majored in rock ’n’ roll.”
The band will be performing two sets between 6-10 p.m., but according to McLean, “arriving early is completely fashionable.”