[tweetmeme]Jangle-pop favorites Let’s Active will reunite on stage in Carrboro, N.C., for the first time in 24 years tonight at a teenage cancer benefit, with bandleader and R.E.M. producer Mitch Easter joined by founding drummer Sara Romweber and Game Theory bassist Suzi Ziegler filling in for original member Faye Hunter, who took her own life last summer.
Tonight’s performance at the Cat’s Cradle is part of Be Loud! ’14, a benefit for the Be Loud! Sophie Foundation in memory of 15-year-old Sophie Steiner, who died of cancer last August.
Easter tells the News & Observer that he’d sought to reunite the early ’80s incarnation of Let’s Active.
“I never wanted to play again as Let’s Active unless it was with those people who were in it at the beginning. I’ve always felt like any old band that goes away and then tries to come back should make it as much like the first version as possible. The fact that Sara wanted to do this was really inspiring. Of course, it’s horrible not to have Faye here to do it with us. There will obviously never be a real original Let’s Active show again. But this feels legit to me because of Suzi and her connection to the whole thing.”
Easter, the only constant in Let’s Active’s original 1981-to-1990 run, previously worked with Ziegler when he produced Game Theory’s 1986 album The Big Shot Chronicles.
Of the band’s rehearsals, he says:
“Everything’s really fast, which is impressive. It’s also complicated. It may not sound like it, but it is, which has been a challenge for Suzi because the bass parts are very riffy and specific. It’s like math rock, even though no one else would hear it that way. And it’s a bit of a challenge to keep up with. First time through, I was thinking, ‘Oh my God, I’m gonna need an oxygen tank to do this.’ Yeah, there were places on those records where I was totally singing out of tune, but I don’t care.”
Read more of Easter’s interview at newsobserver.com.
