Just as the Beatles made a unique return to live shows with their famed rooftop live concert, the CE Pro All-Star Band made its return a unique one also. The band played a virtual show to close out the CEDIA Expo Virtual on September 17 with hundreds watching the show online.

The show was billed as a benefit concert for the newly announced CEDIA Scholarship Fund as part of the CEDIASTRONG initiative. Ed Wenck, CEDIA’s content director. The money raised during the concert was matched by Emerald, CEDIA’s partners in the CEDIA Expo.

During the concert, Wenck also announced the winners of the CEDIA Expo Virtual booth contest:

• All-expense paid trip to CEDIA Expo 2021 in Indianapolis
  • 1st place with 5,450 points is Josh Anderson with Firm Foundations Home, LLC
• Yeti Cooler
  • 2nd place with 4,500 points is Amanda Meltzer with TechMaven
• $100 VISA Gift Card
  • 3rd place with 3,450 points is Jake Fuller with Automated Audio Visual

The musicians from the industry put together a brief 15-minute set of songs with a lot of effort. Once the songs were decided and the key determined for each song, each individual musician had to record an audio track of their instrument or vocal. Not easy to do when you are the only one playing. Then, they also recorded several videos of themselves playing the song.

The audio tracks were sent to Jeff Gardner, who recently retired from his teaching position with CEDIA, and just completed the build of his Plus One Audio recording studio. Gardner worked more than 40 hours mixing the audio tracks together to “build” the songs.

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With the audio track in hand, CE Pro‘s multimedia director Larry Holmes then spent 40 hours editing the video clips to match the audio track. CE Pro’s art director Katie Stockham also chipped in with some cool background designs for the video.

The band performed:

• “Wagon Wheel” by Darius Rucker
• “Soul Man” by Blues Brothers version (Sam and Dave cover)
• “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
• “Come Together” by Aerosmith (live cover version of The Beatles)
• “When It Rains It Pours” by Luke Combs
• “Broken Halos” by Chris Stapleton

The band included Gardner, who also played harmonica and did background vocals on several songs; Vince Luciani of Ametek on lead guitar; Geoff Meads of Presto Web Design, Bob Archer of CE Pro and Richard Charschan of AcousticSmart on rhythm guitar; Jim Garrett of Harman Luxury and Tim Bigoness of D-Tools on drums; Mitchell Klein of Z-Wave Alliance and Dave Silkin of DSG Distributors on bass; and Rick Santiago of Indy Audio Labs on horns. Vocals were handled by Meads, Bigoness and Victoria Mills. Klein also played mandolin on Wagon Wheel.

Unfortunately, there was an internet outage at the host location that hit before the final song “Broken Halos” could air. So here is the concert in its entirety for your enjoyment.

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