The last time Holy Rolling Empire graced a Tucson marquee was in 2016 at the now long-gone Flycatcher on North Fourth Avenue.
On Friday, May 26, the band is back on a hometown marquee, this time Hotel Congress for a Club Congress show featuring openers Tucson rockers Abes Bones and Dusty Rug out of Flagstaff.
This is a reunion show in the sense that the band is getting back together, but it’s not technically a reunion show.
The band never really broke up.
“The only reason we stopped playing was because Orin (Shochat) moved to Los Angeles,” drummer Dave McGann said of the lead singer’s 2012 exit.
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Shochat went on to a career in woodworking and started a family.
“I played music for so long that when I moved to LA and stopped not having a band to play with out here, it always felt like a big part of me was missing,” Shochat said. “I’m really excited. It’s going to be great.”
Shochat and guitarist Ian Carstensen are the only HRE members who hit pause on their music careers.
McGann plays in Tom Heavy and the Party Makers, and he and bass player Geoff Hidalgo play in the rock band Toros. Hidalgo also is part of the cumbia/psychedelic rock band XIXA while guitar player Noah Horton plays with Asian Fred and Neon Eon.
“I love playing music and especially with these guys,” said Carstensen, the father of two who works as an engineer. “We’ve all kind of been the groomsmen in each other’s weddings. We are all really good friends.”
Horton said the Congress show will include songs off the psychedelic-rock band’s 2009 debut album “Gigantus” and their 2010 EP “Noise Will Be Noise.” The band, comprised of a group of high school friends who started playing music together in 2005, also has a full-length album they wrote and demoed but never recorded.
“It’s always been kind of the dream to record that record and release it and I’m always thinking if I could get everybody to commit a year in advance, maybe we could book a studio and cut the record,” McGann said during a conference call interview last week with his other bandmates on the line.
But those plans have taken a backseat the past several years as Shochat, McGann and Cartensen have had kids and settled into family life.
Shochat said that despite his absence from music, he thinks that once HRE takes the Congress stage, everything will fall into place, and it will be as if no time has gone by.
“I’m excited to have a night that just kind of feels like the old times,” he said.
The doors to Friday’s 21-and-older show at Club Congress, 311 E. Congress St., open at 8 p.m. and tickets are $10 through hotelcongress.com.
Tucson Landmarks: Hotel Congress, 311 E. Congress St., opened in 1919 as a luxurious mainstay for visitors arriving in the Old Pueblo.
The downtown landmark has kept much of its history alive in the past century, while also bringing modern amenities to Tucson natives and tourists.
Video by Riley Brown / For the Arizona Daily Star
Contact reporter Cathalena E. Burch at [email protected]. On Twitter @Starburch
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