All the publicity pointed to 1990s pop ensemble Sister Hazel as the headliner for Saturday’s Annual Our Hospice of South Central Indiana Labor Day Weekend concert at Mill Race Park in Columbus.
But Mother Nature stole a bit of the spotlight by introducing a sun-splashed evening with temperatures in the mid-80s to perhaps redeem herself from last year’s rainout — a soggy misfortune that, paired with two years of COVID spikes, canceled the fundraising event for three straight years.
Attendees such as Columbus John Young, who said he had attended all the hospice concerts since 1987 as best he can remember, was glad to see the event, one of the city’s largest single-day gatherings, return.
“I’m a musician myself, so I just love all the music,” Young said while grabbing tacos from a vendor.
Also among an estimated 6,000 people at the show were local residents Greg Morris and his wife Kim. The couple has seen the group about 25 times total at venues as varied as a cave at Cumberland Caverns in Tennessee to an acoustic set in a Greenwood Best Buy parking lot to promote a show that night in Indianapolis.
“So many of their (older) songs are just so catchy,” Morris said. “Some of their newer material I’m not yet quite that familiar with.”
The pair even delayed their honeymoon a couple days to catch the quintet in concert. The group is best known for its 1997 hit “All For You.”
Lead singer Ken Block and his mates opened the show with the song “Change Your Mind.” At one point in between tunes, he referred to hospice’s work and asked those in the crowd to raise their hand if the nonprofit had touched their life or helped in some way.
A lot of hands went up throughout the audience.
“They’re really earth angels,” Block said.
Hospice generates profits from the event from corporate sponsorships, raffle ticket sales, T-shirt sales and more. In recent years, proceeds have been in the range of $150,000 to go toward the organization’s work with patients with life-limiting illnesses and their families.
The event began in 1987 with the Glenn Miller Orchestra at the Bartholomew County Public Library Plaza before organizers shifted to a classic pop-rock theme in 1988 with The Platters and the Drifters. It was a catchy, family-oriented way for the local hospice, recognized as the first in the state in 1980, to build awareness and educate the community about its compassionate and novel mission, which at that time was caring for the terminally ill and their families.
Through the years, classic acts have included such past pop-rock stars as Davy Jones of the Monkees, Chubby Checker, Johnny Rivers, The Grass Roots, the Temptations and more. More recent acts have included ex-Styx leader singer Dennis DeYoung and Peter Cetera, formerly of Chicago before his solo career rocketed.
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