The rain was steady and the winds were cold, so the plan to hear the music in the green space behind the Visitor’s Center changed. The concert moved to the Hope City Hall and Klipsch Auditorium and started at about 6:40 with an introduction from Hope Mayor Don Still.
Still recounted his first time hearing music from Klipsch speakers at a store called Sound Town in Texarkana while there with high school friends. “It was an experience I’ll never forget.”
He told the attendees, “I want to thank all y'all for coming, and I hope you have a great time and spend a lot of money while you’re in Hope. We need your taxes.”
City Director and Hope-Hempstead County Economic Development Corporation board member Mark Ross next spoke, recognizing Klipsch as one of Hempstead County’s most valued employers, adding “It’s been through a lot since Paul [Klipsch] owned it, and then, I believe, his nephew. It’s been through several changes. It’s in the process of getting ready to go through another change, which you’ll hear about in the near future.” He called for a round of applause for the company’s past and current employees.
Secretary of the Klipsch Museum Association Board of Trustees Denise Cooper spoke about the association’s mission. “Mr. Klipsch kept a lot of stuff, and he wrote a lot of stuff and had an extensive library, and of that, we are the proud managers, and we take it very seriously. We have big aspirations for what we can do with this information to encourage engineering, technology, art, math and science, because it's music and the sound of science that can get kids excited and young people excited and old folks excited,” she said.
Then the PePaw Collective, an acoustic duo one of whom sings and plays guitar while the other also sings and provides percussion, played soulful and meditative versions of several songs, including Larry Norman’s “Watch What You’re Doing,” Edie Brickell and New Bohemians’ “What I Am,” “Amazing Grace,” and Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine,” and an original named “The Consolation.” Their 45 minutes won generous applause.
Next the four-piece band LB and the Riffraff, led by Lee Brooks came onstage. Brooks, who helps out at the Klipsch Lab, said he had awakened Saturday morning with hoarseness but that lent itself well to a set consisting of rock shouters and especially fit the Bryan Adams covers “Cuts Like a Knife” and “Heaven.”
The songs were richly textured with lots of Brooks’ soaring and coiling electric guitar soloing. They included “Rock and Roll Fantasy,” “Two Tickets to Paradise,” “Come Together,” The Mountain,” “Feelin’ All Right,” on which the keyboardist contributed lead vocals, “Born to Be Wild,” “Cant Get Enough of Your Love” and uproarious versions of two Kiss songs “Love Gun” and “Rock and Roll All Night” to end the festivities.
The evening through you could not miss the massive Klipsch speakers at either end of the stage immaculate sentries channeling through that signature well-balanced sound that doesn’t rattle your ears and puts you right amid the instruments. The man who invented the things would be 121 tomorrow, but surely if he could, he’d surely say the party was good.
